


The Path is There. Follow It.

by ama



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Developing Relationship, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Politics, Universe Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:28:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27926764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama
Summary: “I am going to look a fool if you say you don’t want me along with you, Kamet,” he said with a self-deprecating smile.I looked up at him in silence for a long moment. I thought about the pride Costis took in doing his duty, protecting his king and country, and the conflicting opinions of the two guards outside my door. About how much he might be sacrificing in leaving with me, and how little he could hope to gain in return.  I thought about every nasty and uncharitable thought that had ever crossed my mind, every lie I had told him, beginning at the docks of Ianna-Ir. Then I opened my mouth and told the worst lie of all.“I don’t want you along with me.”
Relationships: Kamet/Costis Ormentiedes
Comments: 31
Kudos: 79





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is what happens when you’re in an “every song I listen to relates to my OTP” mood and Hello by Adele comes up on shuffle. And then what was meant to be a oneshot turned into a rewrite of large parts of ROTT--go figure.
> 
> Asterisks indicate a change in POV, and ellipses indicate different scenes in the same POV that are not consecutive--basically, I skip to a relevant canon scene that I’ve altered somewhat to fit this AU, and you can assume that everything in between happened more or less the way it did in canon, without me straight-up copying long passages of MWT’s writing. (In the event I did feel it was necessary to copy long passages, the first and last words are bolded.)

Despite all my many meetings and all of my free time in the Attolian palace, there was one person I never saw, never sought out, and that was Costis. He had been my constant companion for months, and my longing for him was almost as strong as my dread at what I would say. But I need not have worried. Costis was as familiar with the Attolian palace as I had been with the palace of Ianna-Ir, and just as capable of hiding himself away in its warren of passages if he wanted to go unseen.

I did speak _of_ him, though, once—with one of the guards stationed outside my door. There were always two, although the men themselves rotated between members of the same squad. They did not accompany me through the palace unless I requested it specifically, which I never did. I suspected that they preferred it when I was out of my rooms, and they could lean against the wall, gossip, and gamble, instead of standing stiff and staring silently at the opposite wall. One day, I left the room with a courteous smile, as always—only to see a flash of color at the end of the hall that I suspected was one of Melheret’s coats. I couldn’t be sure, of course, my eyesight being what it was, but it was a shade of scarlet very fashionable in Sidussa at the time, and cut looser than the Attolian style. I did not want to speak with Melheret that day, and so I ducked quickly back into my rooms.

Then, when I stepped out again, I realized I was suddenly very tired and had absolutely no desire to go to the library, making small talk with every aristocrat and scholar I might meet on the way. I had already had one very long, very dull meeting that morning, and the sighting of Melheret had sapped my remaining energy. I turned to go back inside again, and felt my cheeks warm at the sight of the guards, who had straightened at my exit, relaxed, and straightened again, and were now reconciling themselves to the fact that they would not get their hoped-for break.

“I’m sorry,” I said self-deprecatingly. “I seem to be very indecisive today.”

“It’s no trouble for us,” the friendlier of the guards said. The other gave a single nod that suggested to me he considered it more of a burden, but was deferring to his superior. “I’d think twice about running into the Mede ambassador, too. They always seem to cause trouble, don’t they?”

So I had been right about Melheret. The guard’s good humor put me more at ease, and I smiled.

“Yes. Thank you—centurion?”

“Squad leader,” he corrected. I had noticed some decoration on his lapels that marked him as higher than a typical soldier, but I was not very familiar with Attolian uniforms. “Aristogiton.”

“Aristogiton,” I repeated slowly. “I don’t suppose you go by Aris?”

The squad leader grinned.

“I wondered if Costis had mentioned me.”

“Not exactly,” I admitted. “He used your name as an alias once. You two are friends?”

“Oh, yes. Since we were trainees. He was one of the few patronoi in our training group who would deign to speak to a lowly okloi—and he has maintained our friendship despite his meteoric rise to lieutenant.”

“Costis is a lieutenant?” I said, surprised. “That’s a very high rank in the King’s Guard, isn’t it?”

“Yes. The king wanted Costis to be lieutenant, and even the Guard’s strict hierarchy is no match for the wishes of the king.”

“Ah, that explains it. I had wondered why the king forgave for Costis for punching him, since he insisted he was not a favorite—but if the king had already wasted valuable effort getting him promoted—”

“No, he made Costis a lieutenant _after_ Costis punched him,” he said cheerfully. “But he made Costis punch him on purpose, because he was a favorite of Teleus. It’s a long story,” he said, no doubt because my bewilderment was obvious on my face. “Don’t ask Costis to tell it to you, though, because he’ll spend the whole time opining his own guilt. The truth is, we all knew he was going to make lieutenant eventually, and so what if the king sped things along a little?”

“It’s not right,” the grumpier guard interrupted with a scowl.

“Oh shut up, Theron. You sound like Laecdomon.”

“The king shouldn’t have promoted Costis so high,” Theron continued stubbornly. I looked between the two surreptitiously, knowing on instinct that this was an internal-to-the-Guard conversation, and that to interrupt was to end it. “Or at least he should have put him back to squad leader when he was finished. I like Costis as much as anyone, but there are people who say he owes his whole career to the king now, instead of himself. It’ll cause trouble if he ever becomes captain.”

“Costis is going to be captain?” I blurted out, forgetting my strategic silence.

“Probably,” Aris said with a shrug. “Half of us thought so before, because we liked him and Teleus liked him. The other half think it’s inevitable now that he has the king’s favor, too—except Lieutenant Enkelis, who is still in denial.”

“I did not know he was… so ambitious,” I frowned.

I was beginning to realize that I knew very little of Costis’s life in Attolia. I had known already that he was humble and devoted to his work, and at various points in our journey I had thought he was less or more esteemed by his king. But the picture Aris was giving me now—of a man beloved by his fellows, destined for the highest position he could achieve in his role, just as I had been destined for mine—was unfamiliar to me.

“He isn’t. But Costis is very devoted to his duty, and his sense of duty is all-encompassing to the point of idiocy.”

That _was_ familiar to me.

“Won’t help him if he spends more time as a spy than a soldier,” Theron mumbled.

“Shut up, Theron,” Aris repeated, still just as cheerful.

“Costis defeated two of the Namreen—the elite bodyguards of the emperor,” I said in defense of his reputation as a soldier. I declined to mention the slavers. I still shuddered to think of it, and even Costis had admitted he was not sure how much of that had been soldier’s work. “And a lion.”

“A lion?” Aris said, raising his eyebrows.

“A mother. With cubs. And hardly a scratch to show for it. I thought he was mad.”

“He is mad,” the squad leader grinned. “But you couldn’t ask for a better friend.”

“Yes,” I said, and my guilt, which had ebbed a little, surged up again. I made my excuses and my farewells to the guards and retreated to my rooms to contemplate this new perspective on my companion.

...

“Would you like company?”

I didn’t think I had heard him correctly. “What of your king? Your position here?”

“It was his suggestion.”

Eugenides and his “suggestions.”

“He sent me to visit with my family for a few weeks and to say goodbye. I took my sister a wedding present. I am going to look a fool if you say you don’t want me along with you, Kamet,” he said with a self-deprecating smile.

I looked up at him in silence for a long moment. I thought about the pride Costis took in doing his duty, protecting his king and country, and the conflicting opinions of the two guards outside my door. About how much he might be sacrificing in leaving with me, and how little he could hope to gain in return. I thought about every nasty and uncharitable thought that had ever crossed my mind, every lie I had told him, beginning at the docks of Ianna-Ir. Then I opened my mouth and told the worst lie of all.

“I don’t want you along with me.”

***

I had not seen Costis Ormentiedes when he first returned to the palace—I had been fast asleep in the king’s closet when he and Kamet made their dramatic appearance before the court, and Costis was given leave very soon after. The first time I saw him was when he appeared in the attendants' waiting room one afternoon, looking thoroughly dazed. Medander sneered at him like a grease stain on a favorite coat, and might have said something nasty if Costis hadn’t gone straight to Hilarion and said “Will you tell the king I am here to speak to him?”

“Since when does a guard compel the presence of a king?” Hilarion said with a sniff—he was one of the kinder attendants, but after all, he was an aristocrat.

“I’m not compelling anything,” Costis said, his voice dull and his face blank. I didn’t notice especially at the time, but later, after I had come to know him better, I would understand how distraught he had been. Costis was not one to make big production of his feelings. His words were always direct and polite, and yet his voice took on notes of exasperation or amusement or relief or confusion that were impossible to mistake, and it took him a half-second too long to school his expressions. On that day, his tones were flat, and I would have said he looked bored more than anything else. “If he tells me to get out, I’ll get out, but I think he’ll want to know I’m here.”

Hilarion had not truly meant to defeat Costis, only make him sweat a little bit, and he went into the bedroom. We did not hear the words uttered in his elegant murmur, but we all heard the king’s flat “what” in reply, and quick as lightning, the king was in the waiting room. I had not seem him so surprised since I had arrived at the palace.

“Costis?”

“He said no,” Costis said. He shrugged one shoulder, like a rockslide. “He preferred to go alone.”

No one actually moved, but there was a ripple as the attendants at each other, and then at the guards in the room beyond, all sensing gossip. The king gaped.

“I didn’t…”

“Was I supposed to insist, Your Majesty? I thought it was meant to be a suggestion.”

“No—I mean yes. I—I didn’t expect this.” The king swore, and his face was contrite. “Costis, I am sorry. Truly. I didn’t mean to pull the rug out from under you or— gods damn it. I’m sorry.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Costis said. “I await your assignment.”

“Oh… same as before, I suppose. Lieutenant-at-large, assigned to me. See Teleus about it. He may want to do something differently, now that you’re not part of my dastardly schemes. Something more proper and official.”

Costis nodded and turned to leave. We all watched him go, and when he was at the door, the king stopped him.

“Costis.”

The guard turned.

“My King?”

“You served your country, your king, and your gods well. Thank you.”

For a moment, Costis face spasmed with—something. Pain or relief or gratitude. He bowed and left the room. The king stared after him for a few moments, frowning deeply, then told us he did not want to be disturbed for at least an hour. He went back into the bedroom and locked it.

“Well,” Ion breathed. “Any guesses?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Lamion asked smugly. There was a small one-sided rivalry from Lamion towards Ion—they were alike in many ways except that Ion was a little bit handsomer, a little bit richer, and a good deal smarter than Lamion. Lamion relished his temporary position as the most informed man in the room. “Kamet has left Attolia. He was packing yesterday, and the king sent me to give him a purse. Evidently he meant to send Costis with him, but Kamet rejected him.”

“Poor Costis,” Sotis said, not unkindly.

“What did he expect?” Xikos said, less kindly. “To ride off into the sunset while the chorus twitters?”

“I thought Kamet liked him,” Philo frowned. “He seemed—well. Lonely. When he was here and Costis was gone.”

“Lonely,” Xikander scoffed. “Mourning the fact that he was here, more like. You know what all the Medes are like—they think we all roll around in mud. Costis was a fool to be taken in by a pretty face.”

“Xikander,” Hilarion warned, playing the mediator as he so often did. “As the king said—Costis was doing his duty. It is not for any of us to mock the bonds that men form under such perilous circumstances.”

Xikander rolled his eyes.

“It’s not as though they were not in _battle._ ”

He then made a crude assertion about the role of high-class slaves in the Mede Empire, which I shall not repeat, and Hilarion, Sotis, and Ion all frantically hushed him—Hilarion accenting his rebuke with a shove—and looked surreptitiously at me. Despite my youth, my penchant for sneaking and hiding had ensured that I was certainly no stranger to crude talk, but I did not like the slur against Kamet, and I was glaring at Xikander. Ion laughed.

“Careful, Xikander,” he taunted. “Kamet has more than one defender in the palace—and Pheris has no need for a sword.”

The marks of my teeth in Xikander’s hand had long faded, but he slipped his hand behind his robes anyway, and the conversation turned to a different topic.

The next day, Costis joined the squad of guards surrounding the king. While the other attendants dressed the king, I took the opportunity to observe him. I was curious mostly because of his adventure of Kamet. I thought it must be a very interesting story, and I wished to know more about the kind, quiet young man who had just departed—although I was not so foolish as to ask. The soldiers of the King’s Guard rarely spoke to me, and I made no attempts to communicate with them. They were a stiff, serious lot. Sometimes they would unbend enough to chat with each other in the guardroom, but there was an unspoken divide between them and the attendants that could not be crossed.

Costis was tall, even for the Guard, and broad-shouldered, with sandy brown hair and light, greyish-green eyes. He stood straighter in his uniform than he had the day before, when everything about him seemed to slump. As a lieutenant, he outranked the other men who guarded the king. Two stood at the outer door, and two at the door between the guard room and the antechamber, with a few scattered in between them. Costis alone stood in the doorway between the king’s bedchamber and the attendants’ room. Every few minutes, his face shifted left and then right, keeping an eye on the empty room and on the king as he dressed.

And then, unexpectedly, his face shifted down, and his eyes locked on mine as I watched him from my surreptitious position behind a chair. For a moment, I froze. Costis neither scowled nor smiled. I tilted my head and let my eyes go glassy, an old trick I had not used much in the last few months. Like a mirror image, Costis tilted his head, too, and then he winked, so quick I could not be sure if it had happened at all. He looked up again, and his shoulders pushed further back. I decided, then and there, that I liked him.

“Costis,” the king called. He had not summoned a guard into his bedchamber my entire time in the palace, but Costis stepped forward like he was expecting the summons.

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

The king spread his arms. He was wearing an Eddisian-style tunic that day, bright blue with turquoise embroidery, and a green sash.

“What do you think?”

“Very nice, Your Majesty.”

“My attendants have gotten much better at dressing me since you’ve been away. Don’t you think?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“If only the same was true about you.”

I thought the members of the King’s Guard all looked very smart, with their sky-blue undershirts and their highly-polished breastplates. As a lieutenant, Costis also had silver lilies embossed on his epaulets. The king flicked one of them dismissively.

“Really, Costis. I understand it can get sandy in the Mede deserts, but did you need to bring dust back with you? A little polish couldn’t hurt.”

His voice was withering, and I was surprised to see that Costis was fighting a smile.

“I deeply apologize, Your Majesty.”

“You’re not sorry. Look at you, you’re grinning like a loon. How on earth is anyone supposed to take you seriously when you look like such an idiot?”

“I don’t think people expect the King’s Guard to look especially cunning, My King. Merely adept at wielding a sword.”

“I’ve seen you wield a sword, Costis. I’m still not reassured.”

“I hope that I have improved lately, Your Majesty. I would be happy to demonstrate for you, if you would like.”

“Did you hear that, Hilarion?” the king said, looking over his shoulder. “I think Costis just threatened to hit me again, with a sword this time.”

“He would have to catch you first, Your Majesty,” Hilarion reminded him.

“Oh, that’s true. Good—I don’t think I’d be able to keep the queen from hanging you a second time,” he said to Costis. “And I’m not in the mood for a hanging today.”

With this pronouncement, the king swept out of the room. I lingered for a moment, watching Costis curiously. I had heard bits and pieces of him. More, since his return from the Mede Empire. It occurred to me that he might have his own story to tell, separate from his adventures with Kamet. I thought I would like to hear it someday.

...

 **I was** just reaching to touch one of the flutes when Relius cleared his throat behind me. I snatched my hand back and swung around, almost tripping over my own feet.

“Another time, we will look at those. Not today. You should return to the king’s apartments.”

I felt his eyes boring into the middle of my back as I went.

“Oh, did you get tired of pretending?” Xikander asked when I returned. There was a table in the waiting room that always held a plate of nuts and pastries. There was an amphora of wine as well, with partly filled cups scattered around it. I lifted a wine cup, looked at Xikander contemplatively, and when he tensed, put it back **down**. Hearing Sotis laughing behind me, I headed off to my closet, but I did not bother to fully close the door, and after a moment, Costis drifted towards the entry. That is one of the privileges of a lieutenant—they are allowed to drift if they so choose.

I had not had many opportunities to get to know this new guard, because Costis was rigidly conscientious and did not wander far from the king’s side. He was a very observant young man, and I had noticed that, unlike most of my fellow attendants, he noticed every time I stole away to have time for myself in the bushes, or under tables, or in the various nooks and crannies of the palace. It was only here in the king’s apartments, with guards and attendants everywhere one looked, that he dared to wander after me.

“I heard that you have a new tutor,” he said, in a voice surprisingly small for one so large. “Is it true that you are having lessons with Relius now?”

I looked up at him, surprised. It was not a secret, exactly, that Relius was my tutor, but I could think of few opportunities for Costis to discover this fact while Xikander remained ignorant.

“I overheard him telling Teleus,” he admitted. “Good for you. From what I’ve been told, the indentured of this palace are pretty useless.”

I nodded emphatically, and Costis chuckled.

“And you are not afraid of Relius?” I eyed him warily. He shrugged. “What? He can be frightening. Especially when he’s not frightening at all, because eventually you begin to wonder what threat is hidden so well that you’ve forgotten to look for it. Some people are like that.”

He gave me a significant look. No one had ever implied that I was dangerous before—not in that way—and it pleased me. I laughed, and Costis smiled, and we were both very jolly when the messenger came, flushed and giddy, to tell the king that the allied fleet of the Greater Powers of the Continent had “unexpectedly” met the Mede navy in the narrow straits near Hemsha.

***

_Dear Relius,_

_Forgive the briefness of this note. I have arrived as expected and am settling in. It was very kind of the king to arrange housing for me, but the space he provided was larger than I needed and I have given it up—I am now settled nearer to my place of employment. My journey here was not quite as solitary as I expected, as some of the travelers from Attolia were exceedingly friendly, but I traveled alone from Brael onward, and it is comforting to be in a cohort here with my fellows._

_There are a number of scrolls by Enoclitus here that I have never seen before. I cannot help suspecting the king of knowing about them all along. To your new student, who I have no doubt opened this private message, my greetings, and you should not have done so. It was very wrong. Be sure you use the smaller brass straightedge—the one that hangs next to the armillary sphere—and press the seams in the paper when you refold it so that they are crisp and Relius will not know right away what you have done._

_Kamet e dai Annux_

***

Costis trudged to his room, weary after a long day, and then almost leapt out of his skin. He stumbled back, reaching for his sword, as he whirled to face the flicker of movement in the corner of his eye.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Aris accused. “And that was pathetic. If I _had_ been an assassin, you’d be spitted by now.”

“Not if you were you,” Costis snapped back, more annoyed at himself than at Aris. “You’d still be flourishing your sword like an idiot.”

“Never mind.” Aris rose from the desk chair and threw one arm around Costis’s shoulders. “Come on,” he said. “We’re going to get drunk.”

Costis tried to make his excuses, but Aris waved them all off, insisting that Costis owed him for not being able to celebrate when Aris was promoted to the Third Century. The fact that he had been in the Mede Empire in the time—and that this was Aris’s _second_ promotion to the Third, and Costis had been there to celebrate the first—was immaterial. So Costis let himself be dragged to the city and plied with food and drink. They were well into their cups by the time Aris brought up the real reason they were there.

“Now,” he said, clasping Costis’s shoulder again. “Tell me about Kamet.”

_“What?”_

“Costis,” Aris groaned. “Don’t pretend you don’t understand. Don’t pretend I don’t know what this is. I haven’t seen you this heartbroken since… well, me.”

He winked. He meant to make Costis laugh, and Costis tried to oblige. He managed a weak smile and wordlessly pressed his hand to his chest— _you wound me._ There had been a few scant weeks, in the beginning of their training, when he had been convinced that he and Aris were soulmates, and then one terrible week when his entire world had come crashing to the ground. Aris had moved on fairly quickly, never looking for a relationship nor mourning too much when one ended, and Costis had been miserable until launching himself wholeheartedly into his next all-consuming romance—both of them establishing a pattern that would prove hard to break.

It just so happened that Costis’s next romance was with a very lovely red-haired girl he met in a wineshop much like this one who really didn’t _seem_ like the type. Aris, a good friend with a heart full of pity, had sat next to where Costis stood in the mess hall every day, and they had begun again.

“What is there to tell?” Costis asked with a heavy sigh, dropping the pretense. “I’m here. He’s there. Whatever we had—if we ever had anything—anything we could have had, the business is done.”

“Oh, come on.” Costis lowered his cup, and quick as lightning Aris refilled it, and pushed it back to him. “Don’t be stupid. You’ve been pining for more than a month. Tell me about him. Everything, beginning to end, being as biased as you like. Exaggerate the good points to the point of disbelief, and complain as bitterly as you can, and by the end, maybe we’ll get somewhere. Yamas,” he said, clashing their cups in a forceful toast.

Costis stared down at his wine and felt something in him crack. He had kept himself rigid these past few months, resisting insinuations and inquisitive stares and outright questions. He had been not talking about Kamet for a long time, but now his resolve was worn away like mortar before a rushing river.

“I thought I knew him,” he said. There was a rough note in his voice, and he gulped from his wine to try and hide it. “It’s not only that he’s gone, it’s that I really— I knew I had been wrong at first. At first, he was always so composed, so quiet. I thought we had nothing in common, but that was fine, because he didn’t need companionship from me any more than he would need it from a horse. I was only there to get him to where he needed to be. And then, bit by bit—he was frightened, uncertain, picky, uncomfortable, and I realized that made him brave. He made jokes like—like he had never made anyone laugh before. He would tell me about how he had been ripped from his mother’s arms as a child or flogged for taking a piece of cake, and act like _I_ was being overdramatic for thinking it was horrible. He had no idea how to talk to some people like equals, but he could recite poetry for days without stopping. And I…” He trailed off and shrugged helplessly. “I was so pleased with myself. I thought, here is this man who has been a slave his entire life, who has been proud and ambitious and has never had a proper friend, but I am his friend. I have seen something in him that no one else knows.

“Then we reached Attolia and I felt like the world’s greatest fool. He had been lying to me for the entire journey, and I hadn’t realized it. Here I was, thinking he cared for me to the point that—that we might— and the entire time he had been _desperate_ to get away from me. And then _I did it again._ I spent weeks convincing myself he loved me, despite all evidence to the contrary, despite the fact I had been wrong about him twice already, and here I am wrong again. The world’s greatest fool three times over. And I can’t help but wonder just how wrong I was. How much of it was a lie, how much was wishful thinking, how much was practicality… I know he doesn’t care for me, I know he is probably sneering at me, and I lie awake wondering just _how_ much that is true.”

“Costis,” Aris interrupted gently. “You don’t know it’s true at all. So he wanted to get away—he thought he was going to be executed here. He didn’t want to make a life in Attolia. Fine. That doesn’t mean he never liked you. He defended you to the king. And the one time I spoke to him, _I_ thought he liked you.”

Costis shrugged one shoulder, not in a position to deny it, not in a mood to accept it. Aris pressed his lips together, staring somewhere over Costis’s head.

“Do you remember Melitta?” he asked.

“Yes,” Costis said, surprised at the question. Melitta was the daughter of a tradesmen who supplied the palace with linens. Aris had used up more than a few favors to make sure he was often on duty in the courtyard when she arrived to make deliveries for her father—and then run up a debt to make sure he was off duty to take her for strolls in the public gardens. Costis had always suspected his friend of being more than fond of her, until one day when he himself had been on duty when Melitta arrived, and afterwards gone to tease Aris for missing his chance. Aris merely shrugged and said that was all over. He had been more subdued than usual, but not to the point of worry, and they had not spoken of her since.

“If… if things had been different…” Aris sighed. “I would have married her. But if I—I don’t know, if I was in a terrible mood one day and cursed at Teleus and got myself dismissed from the Guard, then she would be an okloi’s wife. Or if I crossed the street and got hit by a wagon and died, not in the line of duty, then she would be an okloi’s widow, entitled to a pension but no land. And what was I to do—ask her to wait another fourteen years? So I let her go.”

“You never told me this.”

“I told you enough.”

“I didn’t think… I didn’t realize how much she meant to you. I would have—”

“Trust me, Costis,” Aris said wryly. “I told myself everything you would have said. My conscience speaks in your voice. You would have called me a cad for leading her on and then an idiot for letting practicalities get in the way of true love.”

“I would have supported you in whatever you wanted,” Costis promised faithfully, which was not a very useful promise. Aris smiled at him anyway.

“My point is—sometimes things don’t work out. It isn’t about liking or not liking. It’s the will of the gods.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“You loved someone,” Aris said gently. “You were honest and you took your time, and you hoped for a happy outcome that you didn’t get. So, so, so. It’s ended. I’m not saying you must be joyful right away, but you can’t prolong your misery wondering what you did wrong. You did nothing wrong.”

Costis blinked at him like an owl.

“Aris, that sounded wise.”

“Yes.” Aris nodded solemnly. “Between the two of us, I have always been the wise one, and you the idiot. Except, of course, when it’s the other way around.”

The next morning was supposed to be his day off, but Costis had hardly dragged himself from bed to the mess hall when one of the messenger boys found him and told him he was needed in Teleus’s office. He blinked for a moment, considering. He was obviously hungover. He was not in uniform. And his stomach was gurgling at an embarrassing volume. But his captain had given him an order, so Costis only sighed and made the climb to Teleus’s office.

He paused at the threshold. Teleus was sitting at his desk, and Relius on a chair beside him. They were not speaking when Costis entered, and Teleus merely looked up, “hmph”ed, and waved him towards Relius.

“Ah, Costis,” the former spymaster said.

He paused and his eyebrows rose just slightly. There was a steaming coffee pot on a little side table beside him, with two waiting cups—undoubtedly one for him and one for Teleus, but with aplomb he poured a cup and handed it to Costis. Costis accepted it uncomfortably.

“Sir?”

“I will get straight to the point. When you went to see Kamet before he left, were you followed?”

Heat pooled in his cheeks and he stared back, dumbfounded.

“What?”

“You went down to the docks, to the ship itself, yes? Did anyone follow you there?”

“I didn’t see anyone,” Costis said stiffly. “I wasn’t particular watching, but… I was used to looking over my shoulder, from being in the Mede Empire. I think I would have noticed.”

“I understand. Did you tell anyone where you were going?”

“To the docks?”

“Ah, no.” Relius coughed politely. “I mean Kamet’s ultimate destination. Did you tell anyone about it?”

“I told my father and my sister that I might not be able to visit for a long time again, but that is not so surprising—I did not mention leaving the country. I told Aris I was leaving, and by ship, but I swore him to secrecy and didn’t give the destination. Some of the members of my old squad asked if I was reattached to the Guard. I didn’t answer.”

“Was anyone more persistent in asking? Guards or—someone else?”

“No, no one. I asked the guards if they thought they could read the mind of the king, and they accepted it. No one else asked.”

“Very well,” Relius sighed. “Thank you, Costis. You can go.”

Costis handed him back the coffee cup and turned to go. And then he turned around again. His stomach protested at the rapid movement. He swallowed.

“Is he in danger?” he asked, doing his best to keep his voice perfectly neutral. Polite. Relius looked at him.

“No more than expected, I think,” he said lightly, which was not an answer that soothed Costis’s scattered thoughts. “Kamet arrived at his destination, but he attracted more attention than we would have wished in the first leg of his journey. He was able to shake it, however, and he did not use any of the coded phrases I gave him to indicate that he needed assistance.”

“So he is safe.”

Relius’s eyes flickered towards Teleus’s desk, some meaning in the expression that Costis didn’t have the skill to parse.

“Yes, he is safe.”

Costis bowed and left the office. He closed the door behind him and then lingered for a long moment at the top of the stairs, gazing into the distance, wrestling with his thoughts. Then he went down.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From here on out, there will be more direct quotes from Return of the Thief. As I mentioned in the last chapter, bolded words indicate the beginning and end of long, unchanged passages, but there are a few individual lines (mostly dialogue) that go unmarked.

If my third arrival in Attolia was less exciting than my second, it is a testament only to the size, speed, and intimidating appearance of Attolia’s war galleys and the soldiers conveyed therein. My trip from Roa was dramatic, too, but on a much smaller scale.

I reached the palace around noon, weary as my horse. We had ridden hard together, she and I, for almost two straight weeks, and I was not an especially skilled rider. I had jangled like a bag of rocks the entire way, and each evening I had taken care to groom her as well as I could, giving her lumps of sugar scavenged from the temple kitchen in Roa and showering her with praise and apologies.

The guard on duty did not recognize me on sight, but he recognized my exalted name and let me through, with directions towards the stables. A stablehand had taken hold of the mare’s reins almost before I even dismounted. I remembered enough of the palace’s layout to find the main entrance, and then I slowed, unsure of how I was to get to the king—but I need not have worried. In the time it took for my eyes to adjust to the light, a messenger had found me.

“Kamet e dai Annux,” he said with a low bow.

“Yes?” I said, uncomfortable at such deference.

“Relius sent me. I am to bring you to the audience room to speak to Their Majesties—the king and queen of Sounis and Eddis are here as well, and Relius will arrange for the appropriate advisors to join you.”

“That was fast,” I muttered.

I thought it was interesting that Relius, and not Baron Orutus, was the first to arrange for my conveyance through the palace, but I did not say so aloud. They were both standing in the center of the audience room when I arrived, looking expectantly towards the door at my entrance. I nodded at them and then looked towards the head of the room and saw—Costis.

My cheeks flooded with heat. There was always a crowd of people around the king, attendants and guards and various advisors, and it should not have surprised me that Costis, a lieutenant, a favorite, would be one of them. But it did. He stared back at me, equally astounded, before collecting himself. He stood straighter and looked at a point beyond me, his eyes cold. I winced.

“Kamet?” Eugenides asked.

I did not think it possible, but my blush deepened, and I prayed fervently that the darkness and warmth of my skin would mask it—or at least that any redness would be put down to exertion or anxiety over my task, rather than embarrassment. I looked at the king, who was leaning forward slightly, and the queen, whose hand was clenched on the arm of her chair. Sounis and Eddis sat at the king’s right, equally alert.

“The Medes march on Attolia as we speak,” I said bluntly. There were noises of protest behind me, mutters from the attendants before me. The queen merely sighed, resigned already to this terrible reality. “They landed in many small companies, and have only just joined forces into a large army that is marching up from the east. At this point, my estimate is that they are three months from the Leonyla Pass.”

“Did you see the army with your own eyes?” asked Piloxides, one of the generals.

“If I had been close enough to see the army with my own eyes, I would be spitted on a spear right now instead of conveying this warning,” I said tersely. “The army traveled light to keep their arrival unnoticed, and then began buying up supplies the moment they landed. Already, there have been certain shortages in the Roan markets, and when I heard whispers that the Medes were responsible, I rode east until I met a caravan of farmers. I spoke to a man who had already sold half his stock, and was going back with the other half; he showed me a Mede _dinar_ they had paid him with.”

“But we’ve heard nothing from Kimmer or Roa!” said Pegistus.

“Then you have more problems than the Medes.”

The officials continued to argue as two other men entered the room. One was some sort of advisor to Eddis—he wore an Eddisian coat and stepped up silently to his queen’s side. The other I took to be the magus of Sounis, whom I had exchanged letters with but never seen myself—it was the king of Sounis who promptly informed him of my news.

“Zaboar,” the magus sighed.

There was a petty squabble as they debated whether my information was credible without confirmation from Baron Orutus’s sources. I kept silent and tried not to look at Relius—I worried my countenance might speak too clearly if I exchanged a look with him. I had my own opinions of the new secretary of the archives, but none I wanted to articulate in front of the man himself. Casartus, the admiral of the navy, was especially wounded by my news; no doubt he had been assuring the queen for years that his sailors would bring early reports of Medes on the Middle Sea to her ears, and expected to suffer for the failure.

“Why didn’t you go on until you’d seen it yourself?” he demanded. This time I did look to Relius, and his mouth tightened.

“I was not sure a message would get through if I did not bring it.”

“My messenger is late,” Relius admitted.

“You said you ran no spies,” Orutus scowled.

“A messenger is not a spy, secretary.”

Orutus rounded on me.

“You were in the capital city?” he asked.

“No. I was in Reyatimi, at the temple complex.”

I was watching his face carefully. His face was red and his chest swelled with anger—but I could not be sure it was any more than professional outrage.

“Based on the provisions, then, just how big do you think this army is?” the magus asked me.

“Seventy thousand.”

This pronouncement generated a stronger response than even my first. The magus and the assorted monarchs were merely stunned. The military figures were outraged, and again accused me of— I don’t know what. Lying, being overdramatic, being the world’s greatest fool. Whatever it was, it tried my patience, and my voice would have been very sharp indeed if I had not, at that moment, happened to see the one person who was not bowled over by this news—Pheris Erondites, who was standing somewhat apart from the other attendants, half-tucked in a little decorative nook in the wall. He was looking out at the room without seeing it, and the fingers of his left hand twitched as though he were pushing numbers through the air, tallying an invisible ledger. I smiled despite myself, and Pheris jolted out of his numerical trance with a shy smile of his own.

It did not entirely cool my temper, but I was able to respond with some equanimity, at least.

“Not ten months ago, I sat in a room with all of you and detailed exactly how a Mede army is organized, how much each man is paid, how he is supplied, how he is fed. Ten months ago, you were very grateful for the knowledge and accepted it as fact. I am not coming to you like a seer, promising the absolute truth because of some arcane movement of the stars. I am using the same equations now that I used then. Possibly there are only sixty-eight thousand, and they are over-cautious in buying a surplus. Possibly there are seventy-two thousand, and they are operating on a lean budget. But I tell you this as fact: there is a Mede army marching towards you now, and no amount of hand-wringing over its size or the behavior of your allies will change that.”

After that, no one argued.

There was a very long, very frustrating meeting of the war council. Relius was not in attendance, but when I went directly to his office afterwards, I found him waiting, along with Pheris, who was clutching a small slate. I was caught off-guard when Relius embraced me, and that was when I realized that, despite the breezy assurances in his letters, he had been truly concerned for my safety in Roa. I was touched. I had been friendly with my fellows at the temple, but they had no reason to think me in any danger, and I had gotten out of the habit of believing anyone cared about my life. I hugged him back, and then, when he released me, fell into the chair he offered.

“Gods above,” I exhaled. “If I have to sit through many more meetings like that, I think I’ll go back to Roa and take my chances.”

“That bad?” Relius winced.

“Tell me, how is it that I have commanded fewer armies than everyone else in that room, and yet I know more about the logistics of feeding and moving one? The king has assured me that most of the population of the peninsula is literate, but does that not include mathematics?”

“Don’t use that word in here,” Relius admonished. I looked at him, bewildered.

“Why ever not?”

Relius turned to look at Pheris, who was leaning forward eagerly, and gave an exaggerated sigh.

“Too late. Ask your questions, Pheris—but don’t expect answers to them right away. Kamet has already been pestered enough.”

Pheris approached the desk and set his slate down. At the top, I could see he had already written several questions, and I squinted to read them as he added more further down.

“Seventy thousand total,” I said to him. “Fighting men and support personnel together—and that includes quartermasters, smiths, carpenters, stablehands, cooks, messengers, and advisors. Each officer who is a captain or above is permitted one personal slave to attend him, and each general or member of the imperial family is permitted two. Except for the emperor, of course, who may bring as many as he likes, but Ghusnavidas has not stirred from his palace for many years.” I tapped at the next question. “That one, we can discuss in detail later. It involves a more complex equation.”

He nodded. I looked through the rest of the list and answered one or two more. The others, I copied onto a sheet of paper. Pheris looked grateful, and for a moment the three of us sat quietly, striving to think of a topic that was not war—or at least, that’s what I was doing. I had serious things to discuss with Relius, but I was not sure if Pheris ought to hear them, and I didn’t want to be the one to chase him away.

“Your ears weren’t pierced when you left,” Relius said lightly, which was as good a topic as any. He reached out to take a closer look. “Very nice. What is that—amber?”

“Hm? Oh, yes.” I tugged at the lobe of my ear. “The temple liked its scholars pious. Some symbol of dedication to one’s patron was encouraged. This is the Hand of Shesmegah, and this—” I turned my head and tapped the other earring. They were both very simple, circular, with flat faces just wide enough across for the carving. The first was a very rich amber, deep red-gold, and the other a moonstone, white with a tinge of blue. “Is the symbol of Ne Malia. I described it in my account—assuming you received it.”

“Yes, I did. Aren’t moon goddesses usually the patrons of young women?”

“So. But Ne Malia is also the one who oversees… borders. Boundaries. Twilight and dawn. Sleep and waking. Life and death. And travelers who walk those uncertain paths. Upon reflection, I think she may have taken some kind of interest in me, and it is never a good idea to shun the favor of a goddess.”

“There is wisdom in that, to be sure.” Relius sat back. “Your narrative was in the last messenger who reached me.”

“I wondered. There was one message that didn’t get through at all, then. I don’t think anything in it would prove useful to the Medes, except perhaps that it might confirm I was acting as a spy. It was just at the beginning of some of the food shortages. I tried to mention them casually but—well, it doesn’t matter.”

I glanced at Pheris, and so did Relius.

“Pheris,” he said calmly. “The king will be missing you.”

Pheris frowned at him, but his tutor would not be moved. I promised that I would find him the very next day to explain my calculations regarding the Mede army, and that seemed to mollify him. He wiped his slate clean and left the room, closing the door behind him. Relius stared at it for a moment.

“I have not _actually_ caught him listening at the cracks of doors,” he mused. “But it wouldn’t surprise me. The boy is absolutely incorrigible.”

“Does he, perhaps, have a role model?” I asked dryly, and Relius sniffed.

“Please, Kamet. I never listened at doors—I had people for that.”

I laughed, and he poured me another cup of wine, and then we got down to business.

“None of my letters from the palace arrived with the folds perfectly intact,” I said. “Not a one.”

“I thought as much,” Relius said with a frown. “Did you receive letters from elsewhere?”

“A few from the magus. He was not as paranoid about his correspondence, so the folds were less intricate, and it is harder to be sure—but I don’t _think_ they were read. No, if they were intercepted, it was on your side.”

“Hm. Your letters arrived in good condition, but…”

“But the secretary of the archives searched your office soon after you received the first one,” I concluded. “Pheris told me. With your current position, it would not be impossible for anyone else to do the same—although they would have to be more subtle about it.”

“And you were followed in the first leg of your journey.”

“I was. Two men, Attolian as far as I could tell. One was very friendly the entire sea voyage, trying to engage me in conversation about my destination, and the other pretended to have no interest in me whatsoever, but I saw him following me in the streets of the Brael port we docked in. I lost him before joining the caravan back east. Also… someone knew I was in Roa. Someone was looking for me.”

“Nahuseresh?” Relius asked, eyes narrowing.

“I don’t know. Some of the Ferrian scholars went into the capital city for a competition one week, and came back saying a foreigner had been very interested to talk to them. He was looking for another foreigner, a Setran, and he gave my name.”

“Could one of them have given you up?”

“I can’t see how. He never came back to the temple—the other scholars said they had recommended he go to one or two other large cities where he might have more luck. The name, of course, meant nothing to them, and they did not know I was Setran. I led them to think I was a Mede, at first. One of them had spent some time in the Mede Empire and seemed skeptical, so after a few weeks I pretended to get drunk at a wineshop and… well, I may have strongly implied some shameful things about my mother, gods forgive me. Suffice to say, the other scholars suspected I was lying about my parents’ background, but for very different reasons.”

“Clever,” Relius said dryly. He took a sip of his own wine and leaned back with a sigh. “So. I made my inquiries. Many people knew you would leave Attolia soon, but as far as I can tell, only three knew the day on which you were to leave—knew ahead of time, that is, long enough to have men already stationed on the boat. Costis, his friend Aristogiton with whom he shared his travel plans, and Lamion, who brought you the king’s purse the day before and noticed you were packing.”

“Costis wouldn’t—” I said immediately, ignoring the other names, and then I flushed. “I mean—would he—he meant to—”

Relius held up a hand.

“I don’t suspect any of those three of intentionally spying on you. They don’t have the funds to hire spies, for one thing, but they may have passed on the information. Lamion was saving this gossip to share with the other attendants, but he may have told a particularly powerful baron for clout or coin. Aristogiton swears that he told no one, indeed that he didn’t know what ship you were to travel on, and possibly that is true, but his family is at the mercy of their baron, and Aris has once before bowed to that pressure. Costis, likewise, once slipped a bit of information to the baron who is neighbor to _his_ family, albeit only when he was directly confronted and only when he thought that information was entirely inconsequential. Sometimes it is only little things like this, things that are difficult to prove yet impossible to rule out.”

I nodded.

“I see. Which barons?”

“Erondites and Susa.”

I considered this for a moment. I knew both names, of course—they were two of Attolia’s most powerful barons, one a distinct enemy, the other an uneasy ally.

“There is one more possibility,” I said slowly. Relius sighed.

“Orutus.”

“Yes. Did he ever ask you—or the king or queen—where I was going?”

“As a rule, I do not speak to the Their Majesties about my successor,” Relius said primly. “But no, he did not ask me.”

“That is strange, isn’t it? I had just proven a very valuable asset to Attolia, and was recruited by the king himself to pass on potentially crucial information. Why would he _not_ try to keep in contact with me, unless perhaps he did not want to draw attention to himself?”

“The master of spies certainly has the resources to have you followed without my knowing about it,” Relius frowned. “But I dislike the implications. Very well. Orutus, Susa, or Erondites.”

“So, so, so. The question is—why have me watched after leaving the palace? Why watched and not killed? Why after I had already shared all the information I had, and not before?”

“An abundance of caution,” he suggested. “To have you killed in the palace itself would be too dangerous or too expensive, or might point to himself somehow. He had spies in your meetings, and knew that you had not shared whatever secret was dangerous to him, but decided it was still worth making sure you did not reveal it later.”

“Or because it was not about knowledge I had from my previous stay in Attolia, but about any I might acquire and relay while I was gone.”

Relius inclined his head in acknowledgement.

“Perhaps this is a foolish question, but _do_ you have any dangerous secrets about those three men?”

“Not that I am aware of,” I said with a wry grin. “I had the most familiarity with Erondites’s household. Nahuseresh and I determined very quickly that he would turn on the queen, if the Medes succeeded in launching a civil war, but he was careful to never be too direct in his speech. I don’t think anything I knew personally would be a surprise to the queen or her inner circle. Susa, also, went with Nahuseresh. It took more persuasion than most people would suspect, I think. He was wary of the Mede threat, but perhaps it does not surprise you that some promises regarding his family, his grandson especially, bridged the gap. He is very concerned about his legacy and did not want to be left behind. As for Baron Orutus—”

I paused. The current Baron Orutus had advanced to the title only recently, after Nahuseresh had hung his father from the walls of Ephrata.

“There was not much time,” I said delicately. “He was not at court for much of my time here, except for a few days at Ephrata. To my knowledge, he met Nahuseresh only once—I was not in the room, but it was at the point where Nahuseresh was leaning hard on the barons. He brought in Orutus to either persuade him to bring his father over to the Medes’ side, or to convey a few veiled threats.”

“And the result?”

“When he left, I asked Nahuseresh if he thought the baron would be more likely to bow to his wishes. He said he thought not, but that he wasn’t concerned, because he might as well make examples of a few men. Which might mean that the son told Nahuseresh off, or that he agreed on every point but thought the father too stubborn to be moved. I don’t know.”

We talked over the issue for a few more minutes, but after a while, discussing the possibility that some of the most powerful men in the kingdom might wish me harm got wearying, and Relius noticed and changed topic. He talked about Pheris for some time, quite warmly; he had been surprised at my suggestion that the boy might flourish under a different tutor, but I had clearly been proven correct. Not only was Pheris already reading and writing at a level to be expected from a boy his age (despite his paltry education), but Relius was now full of stories about Pheris getting lost in studies of mathematical formulas, making subtle jokes at the expense of people in the palace he disliked, and taking a broader interest in art, history, and politics. In short, the snappish, sophisticated spymaster boasted like any proud guardian, and I tried to conceal my amusement at this development.

“But now,” he said, setting down his cup. “Let’s talk about you for a moment.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. There was one decision in your narrative that puzzled me exceedingly. Perhaps you know what I’m talking about.”

I opened my mouth and closed it. Relius nodded.

“I think we have more important things to discuss,” I said shortly, hoping irritation would cover my embarrassment. A foolish hope.

“There will always be more important things.” His eyes fixed on something in the distance. “I have a friend… someone very dear to me. We met for the first time—oh, a decade ago, now. There was an attraction. There was a brief romance.” He chuckled softly. “Something short and passionate and incredibly foolish, the kind of thing one would expect from rather younger and much stupider men. It came very close to ending in disaster, as these things often do, yet we managed to stitch something together in the intervening years. There would be times when we saw more of each other, and times when we saw less. There were other affairs, more on my side than his. We loved each other, and that was never in doubt, but there was always something more important. And then, there was… a terrible few weeks when I thought he was dead. It was when I was in the queen’s prison. An order of execution was issued, which I learned about, and then a pardon, which I did not. And I could not remember definitively the last time I had told him that I loved him. The idea that he might have gone to his grave without realizing the depth of my affection…”

He shook his head, lips pressed tightly together. A faint pallor had taken over his face. I did not truly want to continue the conversation in this vein, but I also did not want him to dwell in memories of his time in the queen’s prison. Rather than take the time to change the subject more delicately, I said the first thing that came to mind.

“Are we supposed to pretend I don’t know you’re talking of Teleus?”

I startled a laugh out of him, at least.

“It is a very poorly-kept secret, I admit. But you see, this gives me excellent insight into your situation.”

“No, I don’t think it does. I am fond of you, Relius, and it has not escaped my notice that in some ways we are much alike. But you are a freeborn citizen of Attolia and one of the most powerful men in the country, and when I left, I was hardly more than a stolen slave.”

“And you thought Costis would mind?”

 _“I_ minded.”

“And now?”

And now I was a free man who had broken Costis’s heart. I did not know what to say, and we sat for a moment in silence.

***

Kamet was a frequent attendee at the war council meetings. There was some protest from Piloxides over his involvement, because he was not an Attolian citizen and had sworn no oaths to defend her interests against the Medes. But the king shut that down quickly, with none of his usual obtuseness, and the queen pretended not to see her counselors’ furtive pleas for help. There was a very small circle of people whom the monarchs trusted without reservations, and they would not stand for that circle to be challenged. Soon enough, he had settled into a comfortable place in court.

It took longer for things to settle between him and Costis. They did not speak. I can say so definitively, because if they had, the entire court would have known within the hour. The attendants speculated on the matter whenever Costis was off-duty, as a refreshing break from gossip about the war.

When things finally came to a head between them, it was all the king’s doing. Not one of his most subtle plans, but undoubtedly effective. He claimed to have a meeting in the royal gardens. The gardens are set up so that they can be sealed off, to give the king privacy, but that day he declared that there was no need, and he marched his entire contingent—guards, attendants, and all—up to a fountain bordered by hedges.

“Costis, would you like to search them for assassins?” the king offered politely.

“If you think it necessary, My King,” Costis said, declining to take the bait. Costis, like Hilarion and Ion, had earned the right to joke with the king on occasion, although he did not indulge the privilege as often as they did, and not once since Kamet’s arrival.

The king did not press him. He sat on a bench and tipped his head back, enjoying the sunlight, and did not move for near half an hour. Bored, I began to drift away from the party. There was a little hole in the back of one of the hedges; to my delight, when I looked inside I found a small, shapely bird’s nest with four little eggs in it. The eggs were a pristine blue, like aquamarines, although they were too small to be robin’s eggs. I suspected it was a thrush’s nest, like the one I had seen embroidered on the queen’s dress the first day I arrived in the palace, and I shifted this way and that to make out the pattern of the overlapping branches without disturbing the eggs.

While I was making my observations, the king stood.

“Dear, dear,” he said in an over-loud, slightly exasperated voice. “Look at the time—it seems that I have mixed up my appointments. I must leave now, unless I want to insult the magus and the king of Sounis.” He turned to Costis. “Costis, wait here, won’t you? Tell my appointment that I will have to meet him on some other day instead, and assure him it is not meant as a personal slight.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Costis, Your Majesty?” said Drusis, always slow on the uptake. “Surely an attendant—”

“No, Costis will do. Let’s go.”

The king strode off, taking the other attendants and guards with him, leaving behind one lonely lieutenant and me, crouched behind the hedge. Everyone with a brain between their ears could have guessed who was the king’s mysterious appointment, and I had no intention of leaving. I heard Kamet’s arrival before I saw him.

“Oh.”

There was a pause.

“His Majesty apologizes for misremembering the time of your appointment,” Costis said stiffly. “He has another meeting that could not be missed, but he will reschedule.”

“That is fine,” Kamet said. His voice was strained. “I—I don’t even know what it was supposed to be about. The king asked for me, so I came.”

There was a slight brush of gravel as Costis stood at attention and bowed, and then turned to leave. His path took him further into my field of vision, and I saw as Kamet reached out to grab his arm.

“Costis—” he pleaded.

“I’m on duty. I have to go.”

“Oh, don’t be an idiot.”

“Apparently I can’t help it,” Costis scowled.

“We’re both here because the king wants us to talk. If we delay, he will only be more direct. Why don’t we save ourselves the embarrassment?”

This appeal succeeded. They sat down together on the fountain, at least, although they did not speak for some minutes. Kamet’s hands were twisting in his lap, and I think he was waiting for Costis to begin the conversation. He underestimated Costis’s patience; he sat rigidly, staring straight ahead like he was on the parade ground. Finally Kamet looked at the ground and said, “I’m sorry.”

“For what? Lying to me in the empire? If you hadn’t, I would have let you go in Zaboar and the Mede navy would be in our harbor. The king’s plan worked. There’s nothing to apologize for.”

“But I am still sorry, because you were my friend and I lied to you and then insulted you for believing me.”

“Your apology is accepted. Are we done?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

They were talking about something else now, and Costis’s mask slipped. He hesitated for a moment, uncertain.

“You couldn’t help it, I suppose,” he mumbled. “I—I misinterpreted our friendship.”

“No. You didn’t.”

There was another one of those long, anguished pauses. I almost rolled my eyes, but at least this was slightly more interesting than the myriad other silly affairs I had heard discussed in the previous year or so—probably because I liked both Costis and Kamet very much. I liked some of the attendants, too, but I did not know much about their assorted partners except what I heard them say, and people in love tend to describe the objects of their affection in similar ways. Every beloved is fair and kind and charming, and infinitely more interesting to their lover than to an audience.

“Why?” Costis said finally, and he had dropped the cold, unfeeling voice entirely. He loomed more over Kamet, as if seeking privacy in the empty garden.

“You have a life here. Family, friends, a career. I couldn’t be the one to drag you away from it, to a place you didn’t know, no allies, uncertain danger, with no promise of return—”

“You weren’t gone for a year, Kamet.”

“I didn’t know it would be so short of time. It might have been years. Years of living in a foreign land with no one but me, and I—I didn’t know how to do that. How to—to be enough.” His voice became bitter. “I spoke to Marin alone for ten minutes at a time and then asked her to run away with me, like an especially stupid couple in a tragic play. I’ve had one friend in my entire life and I didn’t realize what she was until after, and the most selfless thing she ever did for me was to send me away. I thought… sooner or later, everything would collapse around us, and the least I could do was save you from being caught in the rubble.”

Costis looked at him. Kamet looked at his lap. My bad leg began to get pins and needles.

“Well, that was stupid.”

I thought Kamet might bristle—he was a bristly type of person—but he only slumped.

“Yes.”

“I was not being dragged anywhere, Kamet. _You_ had been dragged, by me, from the empire to Attolia. You made the decision to leave for Roa with open eyes and a willing heart. So did I. And you would not let me.” Costis’s voice was pained. “One friend,” he said after a moment, considering. “You mean Laela. I was not your friend?”

Kamet leaned back and ground the heels of his hands against his eyes.

“You were,” he said. “You were—an excellent friend to me. And I repaid your kindness with endless lies and contempt, and I thought you deserved better. I thought that eventually you would fully understand what a faithless coward I was, and I would lose you, and how much easier would it be to deal with the pain once, instead of waiting for it?”

“You thought so little of me? You thought I could not see your faults and virtues and make my decision for myself?”

“You thought so much of me?”

“Yes. I did.”

There was one final pause.

“I am sorry that I hurt you, Costis. I would like to be your friend. And if you still wish to be mine, I—I will try to be kinder to both of us.”

I was surprised that the next word spoken was in Mede, of which I had learned a little. Costis had a better accent than Relius, if not so good as Kamet’s.

“Friend, Kamet?” He held out both hands in a foreign gesture I had never seen before. Kamet smiled weakly, and from a distance I could not tell if it was happiness or pain on his face.

“Friend, Costis,” he repeated in a low murmur. He place his hands on top of Costis’s and let them linger for only a moment before he stood, clearing his throat. “I should go.”

Costis stood, too, and nodded. He watched after Kamet as he walked away. Then, to my horror, he looked down—not at his feet, but at the hedges. He scanned from side to side and stepped forward, and then he reached the gap in the hedge behind which I sat. There was no scurrying away without being seen, and I could only wince as Costis hauled me up by the back of my shirt.

He looked at me for a moment, letting me stew in my own worry, and then let go. He even smoothed the fine material so it would not wrinkle.

“Don’t do that again,” he said flatly, and I nodded and then shook my head to indicate that I would obey, and no, I would not spy on him again. Together, we went off to find the king.

...

Relius had again left me the key to his study, and the king had warned Orutus not to add another lock to the door. He had left Kamet a key, too, as well as the task of instructing me while he was away. We continued to meet in Relius’s office, and I was happy to have Kamet as my tutor—both because he was a thoughtful instructor and because he was more weak-willed than Relius. My old tutor had left a stack of books and pages of instruction on what I was to study next. Kamet would never condone idleness, but he soon learned that it took a good deal of effort to get me to read books on Continental history, and that I was eager to be engaged in discussions on mathematics or lectures on the Mede Empire. These grew to take up the bulk of our time together. Bit by bit, I began to teach him some of my signs, too, but he was slow in learning. Kamet prided himself on his skill with languages, and I could tell this grated on his ego.

As often as I could, I would arrive to our lessons early, so that I might enjoy the privacy of Relius’s study when I wrote in my journals. **Describing** the king’s trial and its aftereffects, I concentrated on making each letter as perfectly as possible.

After the trial, the high king’s authority was supreme. Suddenly the Eddisians could not be more respectful, and the Sounisians and even the Attolians followed suit. That the king looked no more martial than he had before, that he still did not sit up straight, that he still had no experience as a military leader made no difference. Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia watched more or less impassively as the court hung on his every word. Increasingly burdened by the adoration, he reminded me of a caryatid, holding up expectations that were piling higher and higher every day.

Carefully I wrote _The king told Casartus as he is not allowed into battle, his role is decorative only,_ imagining my tutor reading over my shoulder. When Teleus laid his hand there, I nearly jumped out of my skin. With a long streak of ink across my page, I stared at him, half frightened and half angry.

“He said to remind you not to lose yourself in your thoughts,” the captain told me.

Having successfully scared me out of my wits, Teleus might have left. Embarrassed at having forgotten Relius’s lesson and having been caught out, I wished he would. Instead, Teleus put a jug of wine on the little side table and settled in his usual chair. He filled a cup and took a sip and watched me thoughtfully over the rim of it.

“You love the king,” he said.

Warily, I agreed. I knew he did not.

“You love your brother.”

Startled, I wondered why he asked, and considered the question carefully before I answered. I realized I would not have been so grieved by Juridius’s betrayal if I had not still loved him in spite of the pain he’d already caused. Again, I nodded.

“I’m sure your mother loves her brothers as well,” the captain said. “Someday you may not only love, but be in love. The object of your affections may be worthy of your love or not. May return your love . . . or not. Remember it does not make you a traitor if you love one. Nor does loving a fool mean you must be one. We do not all have **to be** —Kamet.”

Indeed, my temporary tutor had just arrived, opening the door in the middle of our conversation, but I could not help the laughter that leaped from my mouth. Kamet gave me a stern look, which only provoked more giggles.

“I was going to say Legarus,” Teleus admonished me. “Never mind. I won’t delay your lessons.”

I missed Relius even more than I had thought I would. More than anyone else in the palace, he had truly shared my thoughts; Kamet was an able substitute, but it had taken time for me to become more comfortable around him. He was less intimidating than Relius, but even more reserved. **I wondered** to whom Teleus could speak freely, reminded of the many hours he and Relius spent together. Glimpsing something in the adult world that I would not fully understand for many years, I slipped down off the stool and limped over to the bookshelf. Teleus watched me as I pointed at the empty space between two books, the only clean spot on the shelf, where the dust had not yet had time to settle.

“He took the poems with him?” Teleus asked. I nodded.

He snorted. “Idiot.”

I nodded and the captain **laughed**.

“For two people who profess to admire Relius, you seem to spend enough time mocking him,” Kamet said waspishly as he sat at the desk and began to arrange his papers. “At least I am in good company.”

“On my honor, Kamet, we were not mocking you,” Teleus swore. “You didn’t factor into our conversation at all. I was just telling Pheris about the danger of letting one’s love for a fool turn one _into_ a fool—and you know nothing about that.”

And then, like any experienced commander, Teleus made a swift retreat before his opponent could muster a counterattack.

“Well,” Kamet said, flustered. “Well, I don’t—we should begin. Did you read _any_ of the book I gave you, on the Merchant Empire? It will tie into—what?” I raised my eyebrows. “No. I am not going to—this is not—”

 _I was in the garden_ , I signed with a pointed look. Kamet sighed.

“Of course you were. And of course we must discuss this now, because what does it matter that the Medes are still marching on Attolia? Why could that possibly be more interesting than…”

 _You love him_ , I pressed. Kamet rested his elbow on the desk and rubbed at his forehead.

“Yes, I do,” he said quietly. “So. Teleus has been teaching you about love, has he? Here is my contribution: you can love someone very much, and still be incapable of making them happy.”

He hesitated, and then his tone became even more serious, his words slow and deliberate.

“This is something that you must remember, too, Pheris. People may think of you as too young or too simple to be involved in the machinations of court, but you and I know that isn’t true. You have some very, very powerful friends, and powerful people owe debts and credits to many others. You may love them, and they may love you, but you must promise me that you won’t trust them to always act in your best interest.”

My first thought, naturally, was of the caravan I had betrayed. I thought that Kamet was telling me to put my own interests before that of the king. I was indignant. I wrote _I am loyal to the king_ on my slate in a heavy hand, so that there was no chance fo being misunderstood.

“I am sure you are, but he will not always be loyal to you. He is king, and as king, he must make decisions on behalf of the entire peninsula and all its subjects, not merely a favored few. What I ask is that you take stock of the skills and resources you would have at your disposal, that you carefully think through how your actions will affect yourself before you act to benefit others, and that you prepare yourself mentally for betrayal, whether small or large. You may think on these things as much as you like without once altering your actions. That is fine with me. At least you will be prepared, and if your life were to be suddenly and radically altered, the change would not be so debilitating.”

I continued to glare at him, offended on the king’s behalf, and Kamet sighed again.

“Pheris, the king _stole_ me. He did not send Costis to offer me my freedom, so that I could take it or refuse it at my discretion. He did not send him with persuasive arguments or bribes that might tempt me away from my employer. He lied. Indirectly, he threatened me with some of the worst torture devised by man, until I was too terrified to do anything except that what he wanted. He knew full well that what _I_ wanted, the life I would have chosen, was to stay, to be wealthy and powerful, to become a patron of the arts, to life in relative comfort in the country I had called home since I was a child. I do not hate him for taking me away from that life. I will not pretend that it was easy, or that in the end I am not better off free and in Attolia. But that does not negate the fact that the king disregarded my wishes and put me in grave danger to further his own schemes, and to safeguard the security of his kingdom. Do you understand?”

I nodded. Strictly speaking, this was not new information to me. I had seen already that the king could be petty, rude, even cruel—but most of his outbursts had been directed at men I, too, disliked, and so it was easier to disregard them. My own guilt had kept me from judging him too harshly in our clash over the caravan. This was a new perspective on the king, and I would consider it many times over the years.

In looking back on this conversation, I see also a new chapter in my nascent identity as a scholar, particularly with regards to history. History had made the largest part of Relius’s instruction, of course, and he had always been adept at showing me how the pieces fit together—how the seeds of an action sprouting in our time could have been sown tens or hundreds of years ago. But his lessons were heavy on memorization of facts, and as such I never thought to question the words of the scholars I absorbed. It was Kamet who taught me to think of how a man’s actions could be interpreted in different ways even when the facts were undisputed, and how to notice these biases at play. It should come as no surprise, to any who know of Kamet’s past. He himself had once thought of Attolia as the enemy, and came around to a new perspective only gradually, and he had vast experience writing, rewriting, and translating texts.

We continued with our lesson on the Merchant Empire and its conflict with the Medes, which Kamet made more interesting by adding details of how the Mede Empire would come to conquer his homeland of Setra. The Mede emperors were exceedingly clever, he said, because they rarely relied on martial force alone to make their conquests. They often prodded at vulnerable nations to cause a civil war, which gave them the opportunity to step in as lawful allies. Setra was a rural, highland country, too small to give its king troublesome rivals. But there were often raiders, looking for slaves, and the emperor had secretly funded them, and inflated the price for Setran slaves, until finally the king capitulated to the Medes in exchange for men to protect his ever-shrinking population.

 _You knew this?_ I asked Kamet. _And were still happy to remain in the Mede Empire?_

He hesitated.

“No,” he admitted. “I did not know this. I should have. I knew how the empire made many of its other conquests, and I knew of the raiders, and I knew the trade that the king made. Within the empire, however, the Medes simply praised the emperor for putting down the cruel slave traders who would steal their own countrymen—as opposed to any honorable people, who would only enslave prisoners, those who legally sold themselves or were sold by their parents, or foreigners captured in righteous battle. It was only when I left that I learned how it was common knowledge that the emperor had created the problem in the first place. You see, Pheris?” he said with a bittersweet smile. “No matter how educated or cynical we are, we all have our blind spots.”

I understood. Our lesson was drawing to an end, and Kamet assigned me more chapters of the book on the Merchant Empire to read. The topic was interesting, but the author had a very dry tone I found dull. I asked Kamet instead if I could read the narrative of his flight from the Mede Empire. I knew Relius had already received it and read it, and given it to the librarians to have them bind it more securely. Kamet was a little embarrassed at my enthusiasm, but he agreed readily enough.

When I was at the door, though, he called my name, and I looked back.

“Ah,” he said sheepishly. “Don’t show Costis.”

I mimed closing my lips and departed, my prize tucked under my arm.

***

It was the night before they were to march, and Costis had yet to close his eyes. He stared up at the ceiling, at the gradations in the plaster that he had long since memorized on nights like tonight. He was thinking of Kamet. He was always thinking of Kamet. How many times had he lain here, composing letters in his mind—angry, apologetic, imploring letters that would have to be passed on to Relius if he wanted them to get anywhere, which meant that they would doubtless be read before they reached their destination, and even that mortifying prospect had not stopped him. The only thing that did was staring hard at the one little chink in the plaster that, with a touch, could turn into a gaping hole, and picturing Kamet’s face. His disdain in Sherguz. His sneer in the Attolian dungeons. His cold apathy at the docks. Costis picked at the edges of his anger, feeling the hole grow, willing himself not to be in love.

But it had never worked. As soon as he closed his eyes, he would think instead of Kamet’s face shining with joy in the moonlight at the farm in Zaboar, or the graceful gesture he always made before he began to recite his poems, or the way he had trembled in Costis’s arms on the road to Perf—the first time he had felt that all-consuming urge to cradle Kamet in his arms, the only time he had indulged it. To those memories now he added the glint of steel in Kamet’s eyes when he argued adeptly with generals and admirals and ministers—men two or three times his age and a half-dozen levels above him in the palace hierarchy, but that did not matter when he was merely a free man in a room of free men. The warm smile that softened his mouth every time he spotted Pheris, and the way it didn’t quite fade even when he pursed his lips in disapproval at the boy’s private little jokes. The slow, precise way he had spoken in the garden, not because he was carefully crafting a lie but because he was taking care to tell the most honest truth, laying himself bare without excuse or mortification.

Kamet was not the same man he had been when Costis fell in love with him. He was more of himself, and Costis loved him more, and at dawn, Costis was going to march off to war.

He closed his eyes. And then he stood and dressed in the dark. He moved through the Guard’s quarters and the outer palace like a shadow, silent and unseen. It was past midnight, and the passwords to enter the inner palace would have changed already. He didn’t know the new ones and he didn’t bother to seek them out; he slipped in through a hidden entrance when the guards were looking the other way. All his time with the king had taught him that much, at least. He did not encounter a soul until he had reached his destination.

He stopped in front of Kamet’s door—and there, he almost lost his nerve. He rested his forehead against the door and remembered when he had made this offer once before, on the deck of ship bobbing in the harbor. Without any effort at all it came flooding back. Shame, anger, disbelief, a loneliness so acute it pierced him through. Could he bear to withstand that all again?

But no, he thought, that was the wrong question. He had been living with his heartbreak every day since, and he could not bear it one day more. One way or another, he needed to discard it. He took a deep breath and straightened, and knocked softly at the door. He listened. It was late, and Kamet was probably sleeping; he ought to knock louder, but if he did, he risked being heard by someone else in the hallway. Just as he was about to knock again, he heard the faint creak of a door. Kamet walked like a ghost, and he heard no footsteps—but then the door opened. Kamet stood there, squinting the darkness.

“Costis,” he said in a voice like a sigh, and before another word had passed his lips, Costis had caught them with his own. He gathered Kamet in his arms and felt Kamet’s arms around his neck, dragging him down, keeping him close. He gasped. Kamet pressed closer, insistent, his tongue hot in Costis’s mouth, his fingernails sharp against his skull.

They broke away eventually, gulping in air like drowning men.

“Come inside,” Kamet rasped.

Costis nodded. He hardly noticed the slam of the door behind them, so intent was he on kissing Kamet again. They stumbled through the antechamber, until Kamet walked backwards into a desk chair and cursed in Mede. Costis laughed, reaching down in the dark. He had assumed, from a quick glimpse when the door first opened, that Kamet was still dressed, but his long tunic was riding up, and Costis’s breath hitched when his hands met the warm, bare skin of Kamet’s thighs.

With very little effort, he swung the smaller man up into his arms. Kamet yelped and then laughed breathlessly, clinging to his neck.

“Barbarian,” he chastised as Costis went through to the bedroom, sitting on the mattress with Kamet in his lap.

“Yes,” he said seriously. “Does it bother you?”

Kamet laughed again, a gentle rumble through his chest that stopped Costis’s breath. His slim scholar’s fingers framed Costis’s face.

“No,” he said. “It does not.”

The first frantic rush of their coupling faded. Kamet’s kiss was languid, exploratory—his hands wove through Costis’s hair and he readjusted so that he was straddling Costis’s lap instead of sitting astride him. Costis felt like his heart was going to burst in his chest. After a moment, he broke the kiss to nuzzle against Kamet’s neck instead, and heard him sigh.

He was gentle. He didn’t _want_ to be gentle. He wanted to leave bruises and bite marks, so that even when he was gone, Kamet could press a finger to his neck and feel the sting and shiver at the memory. He wanted everyone in the palace who had ever snickered at him to see Kamet’s neck and know that Costis had staked his claim. That was a horrible thought, a selfish thought that made him hardly better than the Mede bastard who had done the same with a gold chain, so he didn’t voice it. He was very careful to be gentle. Kamet’s fingers were still twisted in his hair, holding him close, and he brushed his dry lips against Kamet’s skin until the tickling made him squirm. 

“Costis,” Kamet said, a complaint and a moan, and he could hear his name said in that particular tone every day until he died without getting tired of it. He spread his hands over Kamet’s back, relishing the feel of silk, and the muscles bunching and stretching beneath it. He parted his lips, sucking lightly at the bend in Kamet’s shoulder and nipping at it with his teeth for only a moment before moving on. “ _Costis_ ,” Kamet repeated after a few moments of this, more urgently, touching their foreheads together and breathing harshly.

“Yes?” he asked.

His voice sounded wrecked to his own ears. Positioned as they were, Costis could not fail to notice his partner’s arousal, but he did not acknowledge it. Kamet hesitated.

“Tell me,” Costis persisted.

“I hardly know the words,” Kamet said, lightly self-deprecating, tipping his head up for a kiss. Costis leaned back.

“Find them,” he said. There was an edge to his voice—more than he had meant to give away. “I have faith in you, Kamet,” he said, softer, brushing his knuckles over his cheek. “Skilled linguist that you are.”

_Tell me that you want me._

Kamet touched their foreheads together again. His breath was warm against Costis’s lips. His hands were warm, too, as they fiddled with the bottom of Costis’s tunic, slipped underneath to rest, featherlight, on his stomach.

“I want you,” he said. “Beneath me. On top of me. Inside of me. I want to—to feel you and taste you and make you want me. I want you to be the last man who ever touches me, and I want to… keep you here in this bed and never let you leave.” His breath was shaky, and he pressed his lips to Costis’s. “I don’t expect to get the last.”

“If I could give it to you, I would.”

“I know.” His hands trailed further up Costis’s chest. “I want to take this off, now. And I want light, so I can see you. Is that enough?”

“For now.”

He pushed the tunic over Costis’s head and then stood, rounding the bed to rifle for matches in a drawer somewhere. Costis stripped naked. There was the first wavering burst of a match lighting, and as Kamet held it up to the sconce in the wall, yellow light spilled over the bed. Kamet turned. His eyes roamed over Costis’s body like a physical touch, hot and attentive and unhurried.

“Beautiful,” he concluded, and Costis shivered.

Kamet stood at the bedside before him. He rested both hands on Costis’s chest and pushed, lightly. Costis obeyed the unspoken order and laid down on the bedspread, and Kamet continued his slow exploration. His hands went lower and lower, tracing his musculature, lingering on the small, raised birthmark on his left hip, brushing over the gnarled scar from an arrow wound on his right thigh. Costis shifted, restless—he had not been embarrassed about being naked in front of Kamet, but there was something about this that felt obscene, with the evidence of his desire so very close and present, and yet ignored.

He closed his eyes. Kamet loomed over him and kissed him lightly on the lips before moving his mouth to Costis’s neck, alternating between his teeth and his lips and his tongue, much more insistent than Costis had been. A soft groan escaped his chest, and then his eyes snapped open.

“Kamet.”

“Mm?”

“That’s going to leave a mark.”

“Yes.”

“And I’m going on campaign tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“I mean—” Kamet nipped at a sore spot, and Costis hissed. “I mean _everyone_ is going to see. There is no such thing as privacy on campaign.”

Kamet clicked his tongue sympathetically, and proceeded to lavish the same attention to a spot on Costis’s shoulder. It was torturous. By the time Kamet finally took him in hand, Costis was hot all over, and it felt as though he was straining out of his skin. The trail of Kamet’s hand over his chest, pinning him down lightly, was like a rivulet of cool water. His touch remained soft, tantalizing, and Costis couldn’t help but arch closer.

“Harder, please,” Costis begged.

Kamet obeyed as if by instinct and Costis didn’t catch the whimper from leaving his throat—but the drag of skin on skin was just this side of uncomfortable, and after a moment, Kamet released him. Costis sat up and reached for him, and Kamet let out a yelp of laughter as Costis’s grip on his forearm pulled him off-balance and he bounced on the mattress.

“I was—just—”

He couldn’t manage a full sentence. It had been more than a minute since Costis last kissed him, and that was far too long. His mouth was warm and wet and perfect and Costis was going to drown in desire for him.

“Idiot,” Kamet panted when he finally pried himself away. “Will you let me up for one moment?”

“Only one,” Costis said solemnly, and was rewarded with a laugh.

Kamet leaned over and rifled around in the drawer of the small dresser by the bed, and produced a small vial of oil. It was a very nice vial, crystal, filled with very nice oil, lightly scented, and Costis raised his eyes even as Kamet tried assiduously to avoid looking at him.

“Were you expecting me?” he teased. Kamet bit his lip.

“No.”

“Oh.”

Kamet took him in hand again, which helped a little to tamp down the immediate flare of jealousy. Costis tried in vain to sound very composed and reasonable.

“I don’t mind,” he said in a wavering voice, nudging Kamet’s cheek with his nose, trying to angle for a kiss. “You had every right to—”

“No, I mean…” Kamet ducked his head. “I mean it was already in the room when I arrived, and I have been trying not to think of what that means.”

Costis choked on a laugh, and Kamet glared at him.

“Make yourself useful,” he snapped, shoving the vial against Costis’s chest.

“Happily.”

He tugged off Kamet’s tunic, first, and then he allowed himself a moment to get lost in the glorious sight before him. Kamet reclined against the pillows, his gaze averted, as if he were self-conscious. As though he did not realize that he was most beautiful thing Costis had ever seen, with his hair—long enough to curl around his ears—as black as the spots of ink staining two of his fingers, with his skin gleaming in the lamplight like the copper walls of Ianna-Ir. (They had taken his breath away when he first saw them, those walls, the first thing in Medea he had really admired, and it had pleased him greatly to hear the story of Immakuk building them. He had never told Kamet that. He ought to, he thought in the back of his mind, but perhaps not now.)

“Kamet,” he said. “You are lovely.”

Kamet pushed himself up on the heels of his hands. His cheeks were radiating heat as he draped his arms around Costis’s neck and kissed him again, harsh and biting.

“We have little enough time tonight,” he said, somehow managing to sound stern even though his voice was breathless. “Less, if you keep wasting it.”

Marveling at Kamet was not a waste of time. Marveling at Kamet was perhaps the best use of Costis’s time that he could think of, but he was in the habit of obedience, so he did not protest. He could multitask—he could marvel at Kamet while preparing him, while carefully arranging him on the silk pillows and the tangled sheets, while entering him. And then there was a moment of stillness, of silence except for the gaps muffled by their mouths.

“Costis,” Kamet whispered, so quiet he could barely be heard, except that their lips brushed. “I—”

His hand trailed down Costis’s spine and settled in the small of his back, urging him closer. Costis gave in, helpless before Kamet’s wishes and his body’s urges—but not so helpless that he missed the hitch in Kamet’s breath. He withdrew.

“A moment,” he said, fumbling over the words. “I will—I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I don’t mind a little hurt.”

“Kamet—”

“You underestimate how long I have wanted you. How desperately I have wanted you. But if you _must_ be so wretchedly chivalrous at all times—”

He shoved Costis away and shifted onto his knees, leaning down to rest on his forearms. He turned his face on the pillow.

“On my honor, I will be more comfortable this way, and you can stop fussing,” he said, snippy and so much himself that Costis might have laughed, if Kamet had not just implied that someone else had seen him in such a state. Which was _fine._ He had every right to seek a bit of pleasure, and it was none of Costis’s business, and—

_I want you to be the last man who ever touches me._

Desire took hold of him again, controlling his limbs without thought. He draped himself over Kamet’s back, relishing every inch of skin in contact. Again, Kamet’s breath caught, and he let out a long sigh as he took control of himself again. Occasionally, his fingers clenched and he muffled a faint whimper in the pillows, but soon they became accustomed to one another. His hips began to push back, and the sounds spilling from his lips could no longer be muffled.

As for Costis, he felt like he might fall apart at any moment. The physical sensation was enough, the heat of Kamet’s skin on his, the tight pressure of his body, the gasping moans that went straight to his cock. But every once in a while he remembered suddenly that it was Kamet before him. Kamet, whom he loved, whom he had missed to the point of aching, the thought of whom had flooded his veins with frustrated desire. And now that desire was fulfilled, and Costis could touch him, kiss him, fuck him, cause his thighs to tremble and his voice to break into gasping moans.

It was a heady feeling, and he kept losing his rhythm, his mind drifting in a haze of lust and pride and satisfaction.

“Costis—” Kamet panted, an edge of desperation in his voice.

One hand reached back, seeking, and Costis took it and laced their fingers together. The angle between them was awkward, and he pressed his lips to the side of Kamet’s jaw as he reached his peak, words lost in a wordless cry.

Costis forced himself to be still as Kamet slumped forward, gulping in air. He trailed kisses down the bumps of his spine, ignoring the scars that intersected it at too many points. He went as far down as he could without snapping in half and then trailed back up, and Kamet arched his back with a sigh. Then he rolled over. He ran his hands over the back of Costis’s skull and pulled him down.

“Keep going.”

“If you need a moment—”

“I don’t want a moment.”

He reached down and guided Costis’s cock back inside of him. Despite his protests, he was clearly overstimulated—his eyelids fluttered and his mouth tightened, but a satisfied moan dragged out of his throat and Costis felt like he had been struck by lightening. He lowered himself until they were pressed chest to chest and began to move, slowly at first and faster when Kamet wrapped his legs around his waist, when he dug his fingers into Costis’s shoulders, when he began to croon soft praise in his ear. The lamp guttered out and the room was dark, and there was nothing in the world except Kamet.

“Kamet.” The word was torn from his lips, begging for something—he didn’t know what.

“Costis.”

“Please—gods, please—”

“Yes. Yes, eshg’am, omr’am—”

The words were Mede like he had never heard it, like the liquid murmur of a harp, and it took Costis a moment to turn them over in his mind. My love. My life. He buried himself deep as his climax hit him, and heard Kamet grunt underneath his own drawn-out moan. His hips stuttered and his legs shook, and he pressed his face against Kamet’s shoulder and squeezed his eyes shut until he could speak without a similar tremble in his voice.

“I’m sorry, Kamet.”

Kamet’s lovely, gentle fingers had been carding through his hair—they stilled for a moment.

“You are always saying you’re sorry. Why?”

“For being such an ass.” He shifted his weight so he was not leaning so heavily on the smaller body beneath him. “I love you, and I have loved you since—since before I care to admit. And ever since that day on the docks, I have been acting like a wounded beast, lashing out at anyone who might try to mend my hurt. Even at you. I’m sorry.”

Kamet’s hand slipped down to caress his face.

“I forgive you. And you have forgiven me for being the one to cause your hurt in the first place—so now I think we are done apologizing to each other.”

“Yes.”

Costis sat up. The sheets and blankets were twisted beneath them. The sweat was beginning to cool on his skin, and he tugged the blankets up to his stomach and laid down, holding out his arms. Kamet settled against his chest, and a bone-deep contentment suffused him.

“Since when?” Kamet asked.

“Hm?”

“Since when have you loved me?”

“Didn’t I just say I didn’t care to admit it?”

“Yes,” Kamet said, unrepentant, and Costis huffed a laugh.

“Since you told the story of Immakuk and Ennikar of Unse-Sek. You bared your teeth like the monster when you spoke.”

“I did _not_.”

“You did. You bared your teeth and spoke in a hushed voice to build suspense, like a grandfather trying to scare the children on a wintery night, until the suspenseful part was over and you were the dignified artist again. This, after you thought I was too stupid to know what an isthmus was but deserved a bit of poetry anyway.”

Kamet smiled to himself and kissed Costis’s chest.

“When did you know?” Costis asked, and he hesitated.

“I knew… I knew I cared for you when you fell,” he mumbled. “And I knew I loved you at the docks. The prospect of losing you—of having lost you,” he corrected, always precise with his tenses. “Gave me a surprising clarity. It is not a sensation I wish to experience again.”

The words lingered between them, those and more unspoken.


	3. Chapter 3

The night before the army was to depart, Costis came to my room.

I cannot say I was expecting him. We had had a single conversation, in the royal gardens. I had made my apologies and Costis had forgive me, clearly employing every ounce of willpower he possessed to do so. I all but confirmed that I loved him, and he all but confirmed that he _had_ loved me, which stung but which was nothing more than I deserved. I couldn’t hope to be on intimate terms again. I was his friend, and happy to be his friend.

I was not expecting him, but nor was I surprised. Kissing him was the easiest thing I had ever done. Teasing him, touching him, pulling him into my bed, lying beside him and whispering into the early hours of the morning... I had spent most of the past few months in solitude. I had been _without_ Costis longer than I had been with him. Even so, I had never adjusted to loneliness, and to be with him felt right in a way that, even now, I can’t put to words.

We spoke, but I remember little of what we said. I remember mostly the last hour before dawn, when we lay together in bed and eyed the window and knew that soon Costis must leave, though we were loathe to admit it. I had propped my chin on Costis’s chest and busied myself touching his neck, his collarbone, his chest, tracing bones and ligaments, noting which spots raised goosebumps on his skin, becoming familiar with his pulse. Costis was still, holding me, letting me explore.

“Are you afraid?” I asked, finally. He had told me a little about how it felt after a battle, but nothing of before. He considered my question for a moment.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” he admitted. “I probably won’t, until we are there. Is that fear? Wanting to delay the moment I will confront the truth?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Are you afraid?”

I was. When I thought about saying so, tears stung at my eyes, and I blinked quickly to beat them back.

“Yes,” I whispered. My fingers were resting at the hollow of his throat. I replaced them with my lips. “Yes, I am afraid. To lose you… I don’t know if I could bear it.”

Costis touched my cheek.

“You could,” he said seriously. “If you had to. You haven’t come this far and survived so much to be undone by something as foolish as a broken heart.”

“Don’t—”

“If nothing else, it would be like something out of a tawdry play. The cheapest kind. Half-copper tickets by the warehouse district.”

He waggled his eyebrows. He was trying to make me laugh, just as he had when we were in the lion’s den, and when he had first begun to fall ill after his misadventure down the well. Just as then, I was not in a laughing mood. But his good humor warmed me, and this time I could indulge in the urge to kiss him for it. I rested my cheek on his chest and closed my eyes.

“Can a non-soldier make an offering to your god?” I mused aloud. “Or does that offend him? I presume Philia, as a sister to Shesmegah, would not mind my attentions.”

“I don’t know.” Costis yawned. “Everyone I know who makes offerings to Miras is a soldier. But…”

“But?”

When Costis blushed, it began at his neck before moving up to his cheeks.

“In the cult of Miras, it is said that the best amulet is a gift from a civilian. There is a story about a mortal woman who loved him, and who was worried about him going into battle. He tells her he’s the god of arrows, but she says he might run out of arrows, and he says, well, he can use his sword, but she isn’t convinced, and she gives him the first shield. Think of how many lives have been saved—all those mortal men protected by her creation. The priests says, then, that an amulet given with such love has echoes beyond what anyone can expect.”

It was a charming story. I had not heard it before, and I kissed him, to reassure him and lessen his blush.

I had been too restless for sleep the night before, and was still mostly dressed when Costis came to my room. I was still wearing the earrings I had donned at the temple in Roa, and after some consideration, I took out the one with the carving of Ne Malia’s symbol. Shesmegah was the goddess of mercy, true, but soldiers cannot rely on mercy any more than they can offer it. Ne Malia had shown interest in Costis once before, and I hoped she might work together with his Miras to keep him safe from harm. I slipped the stone into his ear, the one in which he had carried the king’s seal during our first journey. I kissed it, then his forehead, then his lips again.

“May Miras guard your path in the light and Ne Malia in the darkness. Come back to me.”

“I will try.”

“Promise me.”

“In Eddis…” He was distracted for a moment by my hand trailing further down. “In Eddis, a ‘moon promise’ is one as likely to be discarded as kept.”

“Different goddess. Ne Malia keeps her promises.”

“Kamet… Do you remember—” He sucked in a breath. There was a slight sheen of sweat on his skin. “After the Namreen. By the roadside. You were panicking over your wound, and I told you—that I would never tell you something would be okay unless I _knew_ that it were true.” He grabbed my wrist and looked me very seriously in the eye. “Do not ask me to lie to you. I won’t do it.”

That was stupid. It was honorable to a fault, but it was also so quintessentially _Costis,_ and Costis was _mine,_ and so I did not object further. I kissed him again, because I could, and he kissed me back, and we clung together for a few minutes that passed far too quickly.

Costis stood and dressed. He urged me to remain in bed and get some sleep, but I stood, too, and wrapped myself in a robe and walked him to the door. I kissed him goodbye, and Costis touched our foreheads together and closed his eyes.

“I do love you,” he murmured, as if contradicting me. As if I ever could have doubted him.

“I know,” I whispered. I cleared my throat and drew back, tugging at the shoulder of his tunic where it bunched. “And I you.” My voice was brisk, businesslike. My hands fell to my sides and I looked up at my tall, strong, stupid, lovesick Attolian, and for half a second I touched his jaw. “Costis. My life. Come back to me.”

He made no promises. He smiled at me and left. I went back to my bed, far larger and colder than it had seemed mere hours ago, and stared at the ceiling, unsleeping.

Very few hours later, one of the queen’s attendants came to my room and bid me to wait on the queen. I followed her and met the queen in one of the anterooms to her lavish apartments. It was not the first time I had been in the queen’s chambers. The public dinners typical of the Attolian palace had ceased some time ago; the kitchen boys ran themselves ragged, carrying trays to and fro, finding only occasional respite in the form of larger dinner parties. More often than not, the four monarchs ate together often in the royal apartments, and occasionally I had accepted an invitation when they expanded the circle to include a few other friends and advisors. I had been awkward at first, I’m sure, not used to thinking of myself as a friend to royalty. My role in war preparations had become much more modest, once I had given over all of the information I had, and I was reticent when the talk turned towards war, as it often did.

But Attolia was grace itself, and had included me in the conversation by bringing up poetry—apologizing profusely all the while for “taking advantage of my kindness” in asking for a recitation. All of the monarchs were highly educated, of course, but the king of Sounis in particular shared my love of literature, and between compliments and teasing from the two Eddisians and the magus of Sounis, we had established a more comfortable rapport. I had become accustomed, also, to the extraordinary amount of gold in the room, and hardly blinked when I arrived that morning. The queen, while exquisitely dressed as always, was dressed for traveling, in thicker fabrics more conservatively cut than usual, and almost plain in her opulent surroundings.

“Good morning, Kamet.”

“Good morning, Your Majesty.”

“The caravan will be departing soon, so I will make this quick,” she said briskly. “I fear I am about to embarrass you, and for that I apologize, but there is nothing to be done about it.”

“Your Majesty?”

“I had a message from one of my spies this morning, who reported that a man left your rooms shortly before dawn. Is this correct?”

If I had had any inkling of what she was about to say, I may have been able to better control my reaction. As it was, my cheeks were aflame, and I have no idea what my expression looked like. I suspected I was better off not knowing.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Was this a pre-arranged assignation?” she continued in an effortlessly bland voice that I did not trust for a moment. The king had taken an obvious interest in my relationship with Costis more than once, and I could only assume his wife shared it. She may have said ‘man,’ but any spy in the palace worth their salt would have recognized Costis and said so explicitly.

“No, it was not.”

The queen swore.

“The spy watching your door last night did _not_ report your guest’s arrival. If neither you nor he paid her to look the other way, or arranged for a distraction to avert her attention—”

I shook my head to confirm that this was not the case.

“—then we have a greater concern. It is lucky, then, that you had a guest. It may have saved your life.”

“But—” It takes a brave man, or a fool, to contradict a queen, and she lifted one eyebrow. “Assassins are expensive, Your Majesty,” I pressed. “I have already given over any information that would be of value, and I am not a master of spies who will be forever gathering more. I am no general whose advice would lead your troops to victory. Surely I am not worth the expense.”

“Maybe so, but I am unwilling to take that risk. Not after Brael and Roa.”

“Relius told you.”

“Yes,” she said grimly. Her attendants were not in the room, and she glanced at the door behind me. “He gave me the names, too.”

Orutus. Susa. Erondites. I shuddered.

“All three of them will be joining the campaign, but they could easily have men in place in the palace. The best thing to do would be for you to join us as well. I would like you to join my personal retinue, Kamet—you will spend your days among my advisors or the king’s attendants. There will be members of the Guard around all the time, and if anyone is bold enough to make another attempt under such circumstances… well, then the king and I hold so little power in our own country that we may be deposed at any second, and we all have worse things to think about.”

It was a great honor, that she offered, and I could do little else but agree to it. It would take the procession a very long time to get any distance from the city, so the queen dismissed me from her presence so that I could pack, and instructed me to leave by noon. Again, two men from Aris’s squad in the Third had been dispatched to guard my room and escort me out. I thanked her and left the room with a deep bow.

I was trembling by the time I reached the hallway, and I took a moment to stare out a nearby window and compose myself, wrapping my arms tight around my torso. Relius and I had talked around the possibility that the men I eluded in and Brael were not spies, but assassins—but it had seemed laughably unlikely, and I had not considered it in many weeks. Now, it was harder to dismiss. Who else might seek a conversation with me at that time of night, if they did not have some nefarious purpose? A lover, certainly. And perhaps the king, who would not have bothered to hide it from the queen.

I stared out the window for a long minute, turning the three names over in my mind.

***

**Lamion** was killed the second day. He had asked permission to fight with his father and his brothers and cousins. The king had released him. Drusis had petitioned to be released as well, leaving his brother, Motis, to attend the king. It was a difficult decision all the attendants had to make. So long as the king did not go into battle, neither did they. They would have to desert his service or risk their reputations by appearing to be hiding behind his skirts. When Philologos’s father came to talk privately with the king, Philologos had stormed into the council tent saying he would not abandon his responsibilities to the king, not even for the glory of war. Even Xikos said that must have taken its own kind of courage, and no one so much as hinted that his father might have come to ask the king not to release Philologos—to keep his only son and heir **safe**.

The men of the King’s Guard had no such opportunity. Their duty was to defend the king and the queen, and they could hardly expect to defend the camp if the army was overrun on the battlefield. Since the ascension of Attolia Irene, the Guard has formed the core of the army—the most loyal, best-trained men in the kingdom. That was still true, even though the Guard had already been reduced by a quarter in the last two years, and was set to shrink further.

The Fifth through Tenth centuries, the ones not permitted in the inner palace, had all been absorbed into the regular army immediately. The Third and Fourth centuries, who guarded the palace but not the monarchs themselves, rotated between the camp and the battlefield, leaving the First and the Second to guard Their Majesties personally.

The exception, of course, was the lieutenants. There were relatively few lieutenants in the Guard, and none rose to the ranks without having established themselves as battlefield leaders of the Guard, men who could not only fulfill the regular duties of a police force but assume command if the worst were to happen—if the captain of the Guard were killed, or if the king and queen were ambushed at a time when the regular army was not marshalled. They always fight, so that they are prepared for such eventualities.

Of course, this included Costis.

There had been whispers, at first, that the king’s blatant favoritism would shield the young lieutenant, but this was not so. Costis had been promoted young even before the king elevated him, and Teleus was decidedly not the type to do favors for men he liked regardless of their skill. Costis was a good swordsman, it was true, but more than that, he had a good head for strategy, and had proven during the Peninsular War (and, I imagine, in the Mede Empire) to have a talent for quickly spotting problems and adapting his tactics to match. Some men are brilliant strategists in the tents and fight well on the field, provided that nothing goes wrong. But things are forever going wrong in this life, and some men made very silly decisions under those conditions. Not so Costis, who could always be expected to take swift and successful action, even if he had to do something almost stupidly brave in the process. So he, like the other lieutenants, was given a command against the Medes.

I was not happy to have Costis on the battlefield, and neither was Kamet, who had joined us at the last minute as an advisor to the queen. I think we all knew the true reason Kamet had been invited to join the royal cohort—the king’s attendants especially, as we had been in the king’s dressing room the morning we departed, when the king chastised Costis for yawning four times and then complimented him on his taste in jewelry. We all recognized the moonstone in his ear, and the blush on his cheeks.

We knew, too, that although Kamet had been given space in our tent, he rarely slept there all through the night, and that he often ate very little of our evening meal—so little that one might suspect he had already partaken of the earlier, less formal soldiers’ meal. But Kamet did not care to acknowledge this, and so neither did anyone else, except for occasionally a few light jests from the king or Ion. Even Xikander, who had so sneered at Kamet on his first visit to Attolia, showed no sign of disrespect towards the man who had warned us of the coming war, and his lover, who had shouldered this new, more dangerous duty without a hint of dismay.

Once, I asked Kamet if he would fight. He looked at me as if I asked if he would ever fly to the moon. “Gods all, Pheris,” he said. “Let us hope it never comes to that.”

I confess, I was glad. I was glad to have another friend with me among the king’s attendants, now that we were such a small, grim group. Kamet spent the mornings and the evenings with us, and most of the day in conference with the queen and her other advisors and generals. The queen’s attendants, otherwise, were greatly reduced. A hospital was set up in Lartius, a small town well south of the battleground and inland. Most of her attendants, and Eddis’s, were there. Attolia had selected Chloe to stay with her, and Eddis had chosen Selene. The king had attempted to order Attolia back to Lartius as well, without success.

On the sixth day, the Medes requested another parley. After very little debate, the queens agreed to send Attolia and the king again, for no other reason than it meant a morning of rest for our soldiers. The Medes came out on horses this time, no need for petty intimidation. Again, Bu-seneth asked for complete surrender, and again Attolia refused him. As the two parties turned away from each other, Nahuseresh delivered an unscripted announcement from behind the Mede general.

“I see you have brought Kamet with you,” he shouted. “How fortunate!”

Attolia laid a hand on the king’s arm to caution him, as he swung around angrily.

Bu-seneth had turned on Nahuseresh and was pushing him back. Attolia’s former ambassador, who foolishly thought she had fallen for his seductive offers of support from the Mede emperor and from him, had been humiliated and had returned to the empire in disgrace. His hatred of Attolia and her husband was a personal affair, and the king’s hatred of Nahuseresh was the same. It was at Nahuseresh’s instigation that Attolia had cut off the king’s hand, and the king blamed him for it. Why the king felt such animosity for Nahuseresh and not for Attolia, I do not know. People are no less mysterious than the gods. If an author’s account of any man is tidy, you must believe it has been made so in contrast with the truth, which is rarely clear and never simple.

Nahuseresh shouted past Bu-seneth’s ear. “My man in the castle would not have been able to take his time cutting him to pieces. Now I will get to do it myself, and be sure it is done properly. Oh, I see your queen restrains you! Come out and fight like a king, Eugenides, instead of a sneak thief hiding behind your wife’s skirts!”

Bu-seneth pushed Nahuseresh one way and Attolia dragged the king the other, ending the parley.

Normally, those of us watching from the Attolian camp had no hope of hearing what had been said down on the field before us, but Nahuseresh had taken pains to be heard. There is a particular trick that many army commanders have of making sure their voice can boom across the field, and he had done his best—that and an unlucky wind brought his words to our ears. We all awkwardly tried not to look at Kamet, but when he held out his hand for the long-range scope, Hilarion handed it over without protest.

“He must have sold the valet,” he mused, oddly calm. “He couldn’t have afforded an assassin otherwise. And he looks terrible.”

“ _That_ is your concern?” Philo asked, dumbfounded. “The man just declared his intent to kill you, and you criticize his dress?”

“I’ve known Nahuseresh wanted me dead for a year,” Kamet said with a shrug. “And expected death at the hands of his relatives for the better part of six months before then.”

He lowered the scope and handed it back to Hilarion, still staring off at the parley site, although we knew perfectly well that, with his vision, he was seeing absolutely none of it.

“I don’t mean he is dressed poorly,” he continued in a voice that sounded somehow as distant as his former master’s. “I mean he looks… ill. He hasn’t cut his hair in too long, his beard is sloppy, he is thinner. He looks like a man raving with fever, and Bu-seneth is embarrassed of him.” He sounded puzzled. “I was so terrified of him, once. Every decision I made in any given day was designed to avoid his anger. Yet now, his anger just seems—pathetic. I wonder if it was always so.”

The attendants all looked at Kamet, and I think they were reconsidering their opinions of him. Kamet, like the attendants, could use duty as an excuse to avoid battle. Unlike them, he had never fought in battle before, and was not ashamed to admit that he had no intention of doing so in the future. This was an attitude that would earn him the contempt of most Attolians and Sounisians—let alone the Eddisians, to whom it would be beyond comprehension. At this calm pronouncement, however, we all took a moment to acknowledge that bravery is not exclusive to warriors.

**When** he was ready to stand again, the attendants led the king to his tent, washed him, and put him in clean clothes, oddly quiet for people who had just seen their overmatched army win an unanticipated victory. They trailed behind the king like schoolboys to the council tent, where he stood with his face swollen and purple on one side and apologized to the queens and to Sounis and to his councilors for his astonishingly selfish behavior. Sounis sat next to his own father, looking sympathetic. His magus stood behind him, looking very grave. There was a pained silence until Sounis hesitantly pointed out that the prophecy hadn’t actually said clearly that the king couldn’t fight.

“I think we all know I wasn’t thinking of the prophecy, Sophos,” said the king. “Though I thank you for the excuse.”

There were a couple of small smiles.

“You were thinking of Kamet,” said Eddis sympathetically.

“You weren’t thinking at all,” snapped Attolia, less **forgiving.** She flung her arm at Kamet, who looked equal parts embarrassed and angry. “Kamet is as well-defended as the camp itself. Do you really imagine he is better-protected because one particular man takes the battlefield on one particular day? Do you imagine he would be better off if you were to be one of the men _falling_ on the battlefield on one particular day?”

“It is _not_ about Kamet,” the king snapped back, leaping to his feet. “No offense, Kamet.”

“The less I figure into our battle strategies, the better, Your Majesty,” he muttered, but the king had not waited for a response.

“It is about that Mede snake. I am tired of his smirks and I am tired of him threatening _my people_ and I am tired of him sending assassins creeping through _my palace,_ and if I—”

He would have continued, if it were not for the unthinkable: Eugenides, annux over the Hephestian Peninsula, king of Attolia, king Over Eddis and Sounis, was interrupted by one of a common guard. To be more specific, by Costis, who had attached himself to Eugenides’s side the moment the king appeared on the battlefield and did not seem likely to leave.

“Assassins?” he asked, putting heavy emphasis on the plural.

You could have heard a pin drop—even though we were in a tent. Gazes flitted from Costis to Kamet to anywhere else, the ceiling or the ground or one’s feet, as Kamet’s cheeks deepened in a dark flush and the truth was known to all.

“Kamet,” the king said, exasperated.

“You didn’t tell him?” said the queen.

“Ah… no. It—it didn’t seem…”

The king’s mercurial mood shifted. He seemed delighted that there was someone in the room who was in more trouble than he was. Costis glared at Kamet, who was staring at his feet.

“Your Majesty,” he said. “May I—”

“Dismissed,” the king said, waving his hand. Costis marched out of the tent. There was a moment of frozen silence. The queen looked around at her silent councilors.

“Well,” she said briskly. “We have retaken the ground lost and established our front camps closer to the Leonyla. I believe the question before us, my king, is—do you fight tomorrow?”

The king looked at his father. Looked at his queen. “That is not my decision,” he said.

The queen nodded impassively and turned the question over to the councilors—except for Kamet. She simply raised her eyebrow at him, and he silently ducked his head and slipped out of the tent. The canvas had hardly fallen closed behind him when there was a raucous cheer.

“What is all that noise?” Trokides asked.

Hilarion, pleased with himself, said, “I think a man got his glove back.”

***

I did not tell Costis why I had joined the army in its march. I did not think I was in danger, as long as I was in the queen’s inner circle, with Teleus hardly ever leaving her (and my) sight—but if there was a threat, then it would come from the camp. Costis would not be with me at camp. He would be out on the battlefield, surrounded by far greater dangers, and I did not want his mind straying to me.

It was foolish of me to think I could keep such a secret forever, though. It was Nahuseresh’s taunts that first tugged on the thread, and pretty soon the whole thing had unraveled. I followed Costis out of the king’s tent, and he diverted me to a private alley. He brushed aside my fumbling apologies in favor of asking a few direct questions—and then, those finished, he declared his intent to teach me swordplay.

I protested. I gave him every excuse under the sun, pointing out that I was weak and near-blind, that the entire camp would have to be routed before the Medes reached me, that I could never hope to be better-trained than a professional assassin. I even appealed to his vanity by saying that I could expect him to defend me. None of these appeals worked.

There was a training ground established at the back of the camp, and he led me straight there. Aris called to him from around a fire as we passed, but Costis told him where we were going, and instead of stopping, we simply collected a few of his friends and continued on our way. No doubt they thought it would be very funny to see me flailing about like a monkey, trying to hit Costis with a wooden stick. Aris, in particular, had been somewhat cool towards me in the past few days. He was always polite, but our conversation had none of the ease of our first meeting—after all, he had been a close witness to Costis’s heartache the entire time I was in Roa, and like any good friend, reserved the right to be slower in forgiving me than Costis had been.

The light was already fast fading, but the training ground was illuminated by blazing toches, and even I had no difficulty in seeing clearly. A group of burly Eddisians took up part of the fenced-in circle, some as an audience, others waving around their wooden sticks more for the fun of it, it seemed, than because they needed the practice. Each one of them had arms the size of my head.

Costis found me a practice sword that fit my height and taught me how to grip it properly and how to keep my feet a certain width apart and rest my weight on the balls of my feet. Then he began to lead me through the first exercises. My cheeks were soon red with both exertion and embarrassment. I could feel the stares of the Attolians and Eddisians at my back, and knew they saw also the way my sword began to wobble far too soon. First I made the advancing blows, and then Costis. He was being very patient and checking his strength—even so, at one point he knocked my sword out of hands to the ground.

I know very little of swordplay, and even I know that the first exercises in prime are not supposed to end with anyone disarmed. Costis merely retrieved it and handed it back to me, and we began again. Soon after that, we moved on to the second exercises—and then he declared that it was time to practice sparring. I looked at him as though he had grown another head. He reassured me that it would not be _true_ sparring; he would limit himself to the forms used in the first two exercises. But they would not be in the order he had taught me, so that I could learn how to spot and avoid his blows myself.

I learned that a wooden sword can be wielded very painfully, even by someone not trying to hurt me. After a few pathetic bouts, the Attolians took pity on me, and began to cheer for me and goad Costis. Every time I blocked one of his strikes (which was a matter of pure chance rather than skill), they whooped. Every time his sword tapped me, they hissed. If anything, this heightened my shame, and eventually I dropped the point of my sword.

“Costis,” I said wearily. “This is pointless. If I had started training long ago, I might be trusted to wave a sword around for a few minutes without spitting myself on the end of it, but I will not be good enough to fend off a swordsman of Nahuseresh’s skill by tomorrow, or next week, or next month.”

“He’s right,” one of the Eddisians said in his rough burr. “Looks like he’s never held a sword a day in his life.”

The sneer was obvious in his voice, although he was wise enough not to provoke the Attolians further when they glared at him.

“I haven’t,” I said shortly.

“What— _never_?” said a younger man, bewildered. “Our _queen_ started taking sword lessons when she was seven years old!”

There was some raucous laughter. Costis opened his mouth, prepared to defend me, but my temper was shot, and I beat him to it.

“Once when I was seven years old—or six, or five, or however old I was when my master bought me—he thought I was paying too close attention as he buckled his sword to his belt, and he took care to explain what would happen if I ever touched a sword. First he would first beat me unconscious. When I woke, the prison-keeper would cut off each of my fingers, and then the executioner would take me to the public square to be flayed, with whatever was left of me nailed to a post as a warning to other slaves.”

The training ground was suddenly much darker than it had been before, and the summer breeze colder. It occurred to me, belatedly, that regaling these soldiers with tales of Mede cruelty the night before they were about to face them in battle once again might have a detrimental effect on their morale.

But I underestimated them. These men—especially the Eddisians—were hardened soldiers. The Medes were not boogeymen; the fact that they were all here and alive meant that they had killed Medes in the preceding days. And their spirits had been bolstered that very afternoon, when their king had joined them on the battlefield. They would not be so easily frightened.

After a deathly quiet pause, several of them cursed. The younger one spat on the ground and muttered, “Barbarians.”

The largest and oldest of the Eddisians hauled himself over the fence and strutted towards us.

“Better off with a knife,” he asserted. Costis crossed his arms. This was normally a very intimidating gesture, but the Eddisian was a full two inches taller than my Attolian, and did not look intimidated.

“Better to keep enemies further than arm’s length,” Costis argued.

“Yes, if he can _keep_ them that far away,” the Eddisian countered. “He’s got no chance at that. A quick, close strike where it will get the job done is better.”

Costis eyed him for a moment, and then eyed me. He conceded with a reluctant shrug and gestured for the Eddisian to take over my instruction. He leaned against the fence, next to Aris, who muttered something that made him snort. I knew he would be watching me intently.

I did not cringe before the Eddisian, or drop my gaze like a slave, but I was nervous. He had several knives on him, in addition to his sword—two at his belt that I could see, and one sticking out of his boot. I knew from my time in the Mede palace that there were any number of places a man—or a woman—could hide a blade, and my new tutor was decorated with such scars as left no doubt that he knew how to wield them as well. He placed one meaty hand on the hilt of a belt knife.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised.

I nodded hesitantly, and then leapt back like a frightened rabbit as, quicker than a striking snake, he drew the blade and pressed the flat against my throat. There was a flurry of sound and motion from the fence. Costis had surged forward with murder on his face, but the other Attolians held him back. One, Diurnes I think, had fallen from his perch in the effort.

“Kamet?” Costis called.

“I’m fine,” I said, my heartbeat fluttering.

“Of course you’re fine,” the Eddisian admonished. “I told you I wasn’t going to hurt you, eh?”

“You just had a knife to my neck!”

“The flat,” he said dismissively. He wagged a finger as thick as a broom handle. “Listen, little man. It is as you said—in one night, you will never learn all the techniques of a swordsman. But you don’t need them. Men have been killed by those of little skill, or none. There is one thing you _must_ learn, and without it, all is lost. That is to face a blade without flinching.” He wagged the knife next. “If you cannot think of this without thinking of the beating, the dungeons, the lash, then you will never hold it as tight as you must. If you think of this as the dominion of your enemy, and not yours, then you will be like the little bunny, looking around for a hole to hide in and paying no attention to the teeth that close around your throat.”

He shifted his grip and handed the knife to me, hilt first. He told me to familiarize myself with it, and I looked it over. It was bigger than my pen-knives, but not so big as the triangular knife carried by the all Hephestian soldiers, which were as long as my forearm. It was a surprisingly dainty thing, sharp on both edges and perfectly symmetrical. The leather wrapped around the hilt may have been red once, but it was worn pink. A single lightning bolt, the symbol of the Queen of the Gods, was carved into the pommel, and three more tooled into the leather of the scabbard.

“Be still, and it is yours,” the Eddisian promised.

I swallowed. I sheathed the knife and held it tight in my right hand. It did not feel so ridiculous to me as the sword. I thought holding it might harden my resolve as the Eddisian drew another knife—this one larger, with only one cutting edge and a clip taken out of the blade to make it more precise and deadly. He stood there for a moment, holding the open blade and watching me, and then his arm swung up again, fast as the wind, and I felt the touch of steel against my throat. The flat, not the edge. I did not flinch, although I felt my heart tremble and squeezed my own knife tighter.

Slowly, the Eddisian turned the blade. It was the edge against my throat now, and if he were to press it with any force, it would draw blood. If he were to slash it, I would die, and Costis would be able to do nothing except, perhaps, catch my body as it fell. I blinked, but my face was perfectly calm. I knew it was. It felt heavy, like stone.

“Good,” the Eddisian said with grudging approval.

He repeated his test one more time, touching first the flat and then the edge to my cheek, where I could not only feel the knife, but see it. The metal was beginning to warm against my skin, and my heart was racing, but I did not cower. The Eddisian lowered his weapon, and there were approving whistles from the Attolian spectators. He held out his hand. I was confused for a moment, thinking he had changed his mind and wanted his knife back after all, but he shook his head when I tried to give it back to him.

“Other hand.”

I held out my left hand. He grabbed my wrist and slashed at my palm.

I stumbled back, yanking my hand free and hissing with pain. Possibly the Eddisian would have explained himself, but he had no chance. Costis tackled him and his knees gave way. They wrestled in the dirt for a few moments, trading curses, and the two groups of soldiers rose as one from their places by the fence, shouting, converging on the two combatants—to separate them or aid them, I did not know. There was tension still among the Attolians and the Eddisians—and the Sounisians, who would surely find some way to contribute if this turned into a riot. I hardly knew what was happening, but I knew I did not want this to escalate further.

“Costis!” I shouted. “Costis, I’m _fine!”_

This did not provoke immediate results. I was wary of getting too close to the flying fists, but I hazarded a gentle kick, trying to nudge my foot between the two brawling men. Costis looked up to fight this unexpected challenge, spotted me, and managed to extract himself from his opponent’s grasp. There was the beginning of a bruise on his cheek—mercifully, the Eddisian had thrown away his naked blade, and I thought that was probably the worst of it.

Costis cradled my hand in his. He took out a clean kerchief and gently wiped the blood away until he determined I was not seriously hurt, and then used it to staunch the blood.

“So,” the Eddisian said, propping himself up on his elbows.

“Shut it,” Costis snarled.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said shortly.

“But will you die of the hurt?”

“...No.”

“No,” he agreed. Eyeing Costis warily, he stood. “Too many men let their mind go to pieces at the first sign of injury, and in doing so invite greater injury. But pain is not your enemy. The knife is not your enemy. Only Death is your enemy—and when he comes for you, you must not flinch.”

I nodded. Costis flung a protective arm around me and turned me around. I thanked my tutor over my shoulder as Costis steered me away from the training ground. He did not slow until we had reached the tent he shared with two other lieutenants. It was empty, and I sat on Costis’s cot while he carefully cleaned and re-bandaged my hand.

“Are you—?” I began to ask. He often came back from the battlefield with inconsequential wounds, although mercifully none that threatened his life. None so far, at least. He shook his head.

“I’m fine.”

He insisted that I stay as he went out again to get two bowls of the rich stew and flat bread served to the soldiers. I ate quickly. When Costis was done, I reached for him, and without a word he tugged me across his lap.

“Kamet?”

“What?”

He hesitated.

“Nothing.”

We sat there, not speaking, holding each other, until full night fell, and Aris came, bearing a skin of wine and urging us to join the group around the fire.

***

**“I thought** I saw a dead man. . . .”

The king eased up on the reins, Fryst took a step, there was a flash of light and a sound so loud that I didn’t hear it with my ears but felt it crash through my chest.

Then I was on my back, blue sky overhead, and my heart pounding. The air was full of smoke and muffled sounds. I heard, “To the king!” as if from far away and I rolled over, dragging my arms underneath me, too weak to push myself up from the ground. I lay like a baby, my feet scrabbling in the dirt.

Just ahead was the king—I knew him by the coat Hilarion had made him wear—lying partly under Fryst, the horse just as still as he was. There were men on horseback coming through the smoke in the air. They dismounted and walked through the bodies, looking right and left, killing as they came. When they reached Fryst, they tried to pull the king free, but had to lift the horse off him first. I saw Hilarion stagger up, his face covered in blood, shouting something—I couldn’t hear what. I saw a Mede drive a sword through his chest. Then they tied the body of the king over a horse and began to lead it **away**.

They had almost disappeared in the smoke when another man stood. It was Costis. He had not been in the squad guarding the king since we arrived at the pass, but the king had asked him to join us today. Apparently Costis had been assigned to just such an outpost at the Battle of Thegmis in the last war, and it was his quick thinking and bravery in battle there that had gotten him mentioned to the queen.

“You will remind them that they can still earn medals even at a dull post,” the king had teased him. “They will be more thrilled to see you than me.”

Costis had strongly hinted that the men would think on the rest of his career path and be left more demoralized than before, but he had seemed pleased to join us anyway.

He had already been stabbed once by the passing Medes—I could see one hand lifted in a vain attempt to stench the flow of blood from his chest. But the other was clenched around his sword. He hobbled towards the Medes faster than I could have imagined, and hacked at the neck of the man in the last position. He fell, dead, to the forest floor, and there were cries of outrage from the Medes. But the next man turned around in time to parry Costis’s weakened strike. I screamed a helpless warning as Costis fell, and this time he did not get up.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


***

It is twilight, and the world is gray. The sky is blanketed in clouds. The earth is dust, and in the dust nothing can grow. The river is wide and slow. Costis is supposed to cross the river. There are a great many people waiting to cross the river—there are men in armor, women in silks, children in rags. He thinks he should know some of them. He thinks they came here together, but their faces are gray and blank and unfamiliar. They teem on the banks of the river, waiting, each alone in the crowd. Costis waits, too.

He doesn’t know how long—who can know how long?—until the ferryman comes. One by one, the waiting people approach and drop something in his hand, and step onto his raft. Some have nothing to give. They beg, and he shakes his head and they go away weeping.

 _I am here to cross the river,_ Costis says to the ferryman.

 _Two coins to cross the eternal river,_ the ferryman says back.

_But I have none._

_What do you have?_

Costis has nothing. His armor is gone. His sandals are gone. He has and undershirt and his leather kilt, a worthless copper ring that once turned his finger green, and an earring in his ear. He offers the ferryman his ring. The ferryman shakes his head and points at his ear.

_For that, I will take you across the river._

_Then I will not cross._

He walks up the river. He walks down the river. He knows that he must cross, but he will not give up the stone in his ear. He thinks about fording the river himself, but he does not know how deep it goes. A long time or no time later, he spots a glimmer of something. It is white—a bright, warm white in the midst of the gray. He walks up to it and meets a goddess.

 _Costis,_ she says with a smile.

 _Goddess,_ he bows.

_Do you know my name?_

He considers her for a moment. She is very young, and with a dress of gleaming white, and he knows she is a goddess of the moon. But he does not think she is the hunter-goddess of the invaders whom his mother sang to at the equinox festivals, or the goddess of the Hephestian Peninsula for whom the Sea of Olives was planted. Her dress is a simple shift, not a peplos, with a geometric pattern embroidered around the hem in silver, and her skin is dark like the night.

 _Ne Malia,_ he says, and her smile widens.

_Yes. You must cross, Costis. It is not in the nature of mortals to stand still._

_I would, goddess, but I will not give up this stone, and the ferryman will accept nothing else._

She reaches up and with gentle fingers takes the stone out of his ear. She turns it, shows him her own symbol carved onto its face.

_But it is not yours to give._

A wave of grief shudders through him. He opens his mouth and words pour out. He tells her about Kamet, about the promise he made to him, about his stories, about the night spent in the well staring up at the full moon in wordless prayer. Ne Malia goes on smiling, as though his words are nothing more than the wind blowing across the gray desert.

 _Come,_ she says. She takes him by the elbow, and they walk back up the river until they reach the place where the ferryman is docked. The gray crowds part for her.

 _Ferryman,_ she says. _Costis will give you this moonstone to take him across the river. But first we must strike a bargain._

 _I do not bargain,_ the ferryman says sternly. _Once, I was tricked. Never again._

_It is no trick—you will have the stone in your hand before you cross. But look—surely it is more valuable than two coins?_

Grudgingly, the ferryman admits that is so.

_The bargain is this: you will take Costis across the river now. He has a friend who is going to follow after him, and when he does, you will take him across the river, too. That is all. Two trips, paid for with one double fare._

The ferryman does not want to agree, Costis sees, but neither does he want to anger a goddess. He accepts the earring. Ne Malia puts her hands on Costis’s shoulders and kisses his forehead.

 _Remember Kamet_ , she whispers in his ear, an echo of something else.

Costis takes a place on the raft, and slowly the ferryman takes him across the river. It is wide, and before they have reached the other bank, the goddess is beyond view. Costis turns. On the other side of the river, he sees a set of towering gates, and perched on top there is a monster. Kununigadak, the Devourer.

There are other passengers on the ferry, and when they reach the bank, they pass through the gates without question. Costis does not follow. He has a friend who is going to follow after him, and he will wait right here. Perhaps he waits years. He doesn’t know. The sky does not lighten nor darken. The river does not swell with spring melt or run low in summer heat or clog with ice floes. He tells time, if time passes at all, by the coming and going of the ferryman. The ferryman comes and goes many times and there is no one Costis recognizes. He is glad of that. He will wait years for his friend—decades. He will wait as long as it takes.

But it is not Kamet who comes. The ferryman arrives, a sour look on his face, and deposits a passenger, and the passenger comes up to Costis and looks him over.

 _Costis,_ he says.

He is broad-shouldered, stocky, with battle scars on his forearms and his face. He is missing one eye. His hair is gray, but his skin is the color of highly-polished copper and his robe is a deep, rich purple.

 _Immakuk,_ Costis says.

_Well met. Come—through the gates._

Costis balks.

_None who pass through the gates can come back._

_Yes—beyond the gates of Kununigadak lies the land of the dead, and none can leave. But this, too, is the land of the dead, and so is the river and the bank beyond. If you had walked down, you could walk up again. Instead you were brought here by Death, and without the oil of immortality, you cannot go back up._ He puts a hand on Costis’s shoulder. _Do not fear—I have been here before, and I will show you the way._

They pass beneath the looming monster. The back of Costis’s neck prickles. They walk through crowds of the gray people, who walk and whisper in a pale imitation of life. Immakuk’s voice is booms in comparison, but Costis does not wince; he turns his face towards his companion and walks so close that they almost stumble over each other.

 _Death is the loneliest of the gods,_ Immakuk explains. _He dwells in the gray lands with little company—the Queen of the Night visits on occasion, but the gods do not like this gloomy place. That is why Death is jealous of all who come here. The gray people are not good company, but they are all he has._

 _That is sad,_ Costis says. He surprises himself; all his life he has hated Death, as far back as he can remember. He cursed Death first for taking away his mother, and then for taking too many of his companions in the Guard. He has sent enemies away with Death gladly, but always fought tooth and nail to avoid going himself. Perhaps it is easier to be empathic, now that he is lost.

 _It is sad,_ says Immakuk. _And that is how you will go back up. Tell Death of your life. Tell him in as much detail as you can. Make an offering to him, an offering of the love and friendship you have known, that he will never know. In return, he will give you the oil._

_It is that simple?_

_It is not simple. The longer you dwell in the gray lands, the harder it is to remember. You must remember, Costis._

_Remember,_ the wind whispers in Ne Malia’s voice. Costis nods.

They go to a palace of black stone. There are no servants, no advisors, no one at all. Immakuk leads him through the palace to a central tower. They go up the winding stairs and there, sitting at a desk in front of a large window, is Death. Death is an unassuming figure, thin and of average height, wearing simple black robes finer than anything Costis has ever seen. He looks up at their approach, and his eyes pass from Immakuk to Costis with no strong feeling. He turns away from the desk.

 _I do not often have visitors,_ he says. There are no other chairs, so he cannot offer them a seat, but there is a jug of wine beside him, and a platter piled with grapes, pomegranate seeds, and fresh figs. He waves at it in offering. They refuse.

 _I would anoint myself with the oil of immortality,_ Costis says. Death looks at him with baleful eyes.

 _So would many,_ he says. _But this is the land of the dead, and none who pass the gates may leave._

_O Death, I would go back to the land of the living. I swore that I would keep my king safe—I swore it to him, to my gods, and to myself. He is a good man. He works himself too hard on behalf of those he loves, but he has a laugh more joyful than anyone I have ever known. He cries when he thinks of his homeland, and he knows all of his guards by name._

_Your king will come to the gray lands,_ says Death. _All will come to the gray lands._

_I do not want him to come too soon. His wife is with child. He has suffered much in his life—he has lost his mother, and a brother. He has left his home, lost his hand, killed too many and sent too many to die on his behalf. There is no accounting for this suffering—the ledger of joy and sorrow rarely tallies—but he is a good man and he deserves to hold his child and see the victory he has architected. And I would help him, if I can._

Death nods slowly. _Is that all?_

No, that is not all. Costis talks about his sister, his brother-in-law, and his father, back on the farm in the Gede Valley. He talks about sitting beneath the olive trees in the hottest part of the day, the dry heat baking him even in the shade, his father’s unerring whistle and his sister’s sweet singing voice. He talks about Aris and the thousand expressions that cross his face when Costis is being an idiot—a new one for each flavor of idiocy. He talks about Teleus as he met him first, when he was young and Teleus was like the king of the giants out of a myth, and how Costis sees him now, which is not as different as he would like to admit. He talks about the queen, and how she felt in his arms, the terror and the love she can evoke with a smile, a frown, a glance.

 _I have a lover,_ he says, and then he stops. He opens his mouth and makes the sound of Kamet’s name, but Death does not react any more than the moon goddess did.

 _Speak,_ Immakuk urges.

_I can’t._

_Why will you not speak?_ asks Death.

_It hurts. It hurts to think of him. It hurts to speak of him._

If he thinks of Kamet, then he must remember that Kamet is still living. Living, and grieving, and alone. If he thinks of Kamet, then he must remember that he is dead, and that no man can escape death.

 _It is life that causes such hurt,_ Death says solemnly. _There is little pleasure in the gray lands, but no pain. You will stay, and in time you will forget._

 _I don’t want to forget,_ Costis says, as alarm pierces his heart. _I tried—for months I tried, and forgetting brought more pain than remembering._

The words are growing more difficult to find, as though he were speaking in a foreign tongue, but he digs deep for them. He tells Death first of Kamet’s poems—of how he had fallen in love with him over a fire in the desert while Kamet told him the story of this very land, the gray lands, of Unse-Sek, of Shesmegah and Tenep and Ne Malia, of heroes and gods and monsters, of blessings and wandering. He recites a little of them, though he is sure he gets some of the words wrong. He tells Death of the moonstone that he gave to cross the river, and how Kamet had given it to him, cajoling him to make promises that Costis had refused to give.

 _He will be angry to hear that I have told you this,_ he says with a smile. _Because he hates to have our personal business paraded about in public. But he will be pleased, too, to learn that I have answered the mystery of how Immakuk and Ennikar received the oil of immortality, and I think he will be more pleased than angry._

He tells Death of the dry well, and how he had clung to the words of Ne Malia’s priest— _Remember Immakuk_ —too wary to whisper them aloud for fear of the miller hearing him, but turning them over and over in his mind. He remembers little of his fever except, once, waking to Kamet’s hand on his forehead and being comforted by te touch. He speaks of stitching Kamet’s head together, and how his voice had trembled in reciting the unfamiliar Attolian song, and before that, holding him in the desert sand, and even before that, grabbing his wrist in the Mede palace and feeling annoyed because Kamet wasn’t _listening,_ even though Costis had been practicing this speech for months, even though he was about to offer him his freedom, and what could be more important than this?

And then, having talked his way backwards and forwards and ended up at the beginning, he tells Death of what could have been the end. The Attolian docks are always lively, bustling with men and raucous with the shouts of gulls. In the morning, the sky is the palest, most delicate shade of blue, and the sun wavers between white and yellow, and everything glitters as the sun reflects off the sea. He had strode down the docks, confident, happy, inhaling the salt-heavy air until he thought his lungs would burst. He hardly knew where he was going, did not know what would happen when he was there—but he would be with Kamet, and that would be enough.

He shakes his head at his own naivete. He explains every agonizing second, lingers over every word. How he heard them at the time. How he thinks of them now, made wiser by Kamet’s explanation.

 _He can be so foolish,_ Costis says, smiling, his heart aching. _And so arrogant. And I love him beyond reason. Please, Death—let me go back, so that he will know how he is loved._

Death is silent for a long time, looking at him. Slowly, he leans down and opens a drawer in his desk, and from the drawer he takes a slim vial of oil with a plain cork.

 _This is the oil of immortality,_ he says. _You may take it on one condition: you will anoint yourself with this oil, and you will swim across the river and it will wash off. And one day, you will come again to the gray lands._

 _I agree to the condition,_ Costis says, while Immakuk turns his face aside to hide his smile.

Death hands him the oil, and Costis anoints himself with it. He realizes that he has been cold only now, when he is warm. He offers the vial to Immakuk, but Immakuk declines it, so he hands it back to Death and bows.

 _Go,_ says Death. _And may it be many years before we meet again._

Costis and Immakuk go down the tower, out of the palace, and to the river. Suddenly, Costis is nervous. He kneels by the river bank and tries to see to the bottom, but can’t. He looks up and tries to see across to the other bank, but he can’t do that, either. He turns his face to Immakuk and looks at him, wordless, hoping.

 _It will be frightening,_ says Immakuk. _You have been promised nothing except life. It may be a short, wretched, painful life._

_So, so, so. But it may not._

_It may not._

Costis slips into the water and swims. He knows he swims for a long time, but his muscles do not burn and his limbs do no feel the cold. Behind him he hears Immakuk swimming. Before him he hears the ferryman, poling across the river alone. And then he reaches the other blank, and he climbs up on it. Immakuk follows behind and claps him on the shoulder. He gestures forward, but Costis looks behind. The ferryman, too, has reached the shore, and the gray people are clamoring. Costis pushes past them.

 _Where are you going?_ calls Immakuk. Costis does not respond.

 _I wanted to thank you,_ he says to the ferryman, humbly. _For honoring our bargain. I know my friend tricked you once before, and you could not have been pleased to see him._

 _No,_ says the ferryman. _But it is my duty to bring people across the river, and the fine was paid. I obey the orders of the gods._

Costis shakes his hand and pats him on the arm, and for a moment, unseen, his fingers dip into the ferryman’s bag. He returns to Immakuk and they begin walking, away from the riverbank, out into the gray land, towards the horizon that is black like the darkest night.

 _What was that for?_ Immakuk asks.

Costis holds out his fist and opens it. An earring sits in his palm, a moonstone carved with the image of Ne Malia. The old king throws back his head and laughs.

 _A daring trick,_ he says. _And not one the ferryman will thank you for, when you meet again, as all men must meet him._

_I do not need his thanks. He will take me across in exchange for the fee, and that is all I need._

_Ah, but do you not fear the wrath of the gods?_

_No,_ Costis says, shaking his head. _My god is Miras, who loves those that defend the vulnerable and the just. My goddess is Ne Malia, who loves those that walk between the shadows and the light. And my god is Eugenides, the god of thieves._

Wise Immakuk sees the wisdom in this. They walk together towards the black horizon. Slowly the gray around them darkens, and then all is black.


	4. Chapter 4

We all heard the explosion. The camp had been rocked by such sounds before, although never so close, and it took a moment for us to realize that this was unusual. That there was supposed to be no battle today—and that the sound had come from the wrong direction. I was in the queen’s tent, with the queen of Eddis and the king of Sounis and their attendants, and for a moment we all looked up, immobile. 

“Gen,” said Sounis, horrified, and there was a flurry of movement as we all leapt to our feet and rushed for the exit.

Outside, there was chaos. The members of the King’s Guard who were responsible for securing the camp were rushing to their posts, but it seemed as though every other soldier was leaping to action, seeking a task. Out of the chaos came Teleus. In a booming voice, he gave instructions to the lieutenants and reprimanded the men for dashing about without sense. He left order in his wake as he approached the royal tent.

“Your Majesties,” he said firmly. “It would be better for you to remain here while we investigate.”

Attolia nodded once, and Eddis took her hand. The king of Sounis protested, but Teleus would not be moved.

“This may be a trap, Your Majesty. It does no one any good for you to ride blindly into an ambush, especially in a close-wooded area with an disorganized army. Let us go first.”

Unspoken was the fact that if the High King had just perished, the only slim hope of victory lay in the safety of the remaining three monarchs—and even that was no guarantee. The queens, more experienced in war, understood this immediately. I saw the moment when Sounis realized it, too. He faltered, and then he nodded and put his arm around his wife.

It occurred to me that I might give the monarchs privacy, or make myself useful in some way. I couldn’t think of how. I took one step back, prepared to bow and make my excuses, but the queen saw me out of the corner of her eye.

“Stay here, Kamet,” she said without turning her head.

“Of course, Your Majesty,” I murmured.

“I don’t suppose you have any soothing ancient platitudes for us.”

I shook my head mutely, unable to think of anything halfway clever or remotely soothing, and we stood like statues until Teleus came back, however long that was. His steps were slower. He looked older and more tired than he had when he left us—but he did not shirk his duty. He went straight to his queen and bowed his head.

“My Queen—the king has been captured by the Medes.”

The queen let out a shaking sigh.

“Captured,” she repeated blandly. “Not killed?”

“We do not believe so. There as an explosion at a rock cairn nearby. Such scenes are chaotic—there was a great deal of debris, and even the men who are uninjured have damaged hearing, or were dizzy and confused in the smoke. They cannot say for certain. After the bomb went off, a party of Medes rode through the clearing and took the king away on their horses, heading in the direction of their camp. They did not draw their swords on him. If His Majesty survived the blast, then he was alive when they took him. He is worth more alive than dead,” he said, just as blunt. Sounis winced.

“More valuable, but more dangerous,” Eddis murmured.

“And Nahuseresh knows that as well as anyone,” Attolia said. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “We will await word from the Medes. In the meantime, continue fortify the camps. Keep the messengers here; any plans we devise, we must assume we are on our own. We cannot hope to contact the outposts or our allies. Are there many casualties?”

“Pheris Erondites is missing—some of the men report seeing him getting on his mount, and the pony followed the Mede party.”

I inhaled sharply. I had forgotten, for a moment, that my young friend would be traveling with the king. I pressed a hand to my heart, and sent a swift prayer to Shesmegah that he would be unharmed. The pony did not know the difference between friend and foe, but Pheris surely did. Disoriented by the blast, he would have let her carry him forward—but he would regain his senses and turn her around. Of course he would. He must.

There was something else I had forgotten. I could not think of it.

“Aside from that, four of the king’s attendants were killed and one badly wounded. We lost one squad—the one riding ahead, closest to the blast—and most of another. The rear squad has had one death so far, but most of the other injuries are minor. The wounded have been brought to camp already, and the doctors are working out of the hospital tent. Now we are bringing back the dead.”

Teleus had been addressing his words to a point above the queen’s head. As he fell silent, he locked eyes with me.

“No,” I blurted out.

“Costis was the guard nearest the king,” Teleus said heavily. “He tried to stop the Medes from taking him.”

Eddis murmured a quiet benediction, while Attolia turned from her and put a hand on my shoulder. If she spoke, I didn’t hear her words. I was shaking my head, refusing to accept Teleus’s news despite its obvious truth. If the Medes had the king, then Costis was dead. I knew this. But once I had known, too, that if a man fell down a dry well, then he cracked his neck at the bottom. These were truths for lesser men, not for Costis. I would simply have to go back and find him. That was what I would do.

I brushed past the queen, past Teleus—he grabbed my upper arm as I passed and I shook him off—and walked in a swift trot towards the forest path. There was a line already of bodies laid by the roadside, ready for the pyre, but I did not look at them, because Costis was not there. The area was teeming with men, bringing in the dead, supporting the wounded, standing in shock and staring into the distance. One dirty figure was sitting in the dry grass, and as I passed, he said my name.

I stopped, but at first I did not recognize Aristogiton, and I almost kept walking. He looked nothing like the handsome, good-humored man I knew. His expression was pained and his face was coated with dust, except from where tears had left clean streaks. I shook my head at him and tried to say _no_ again, but no sound came out. Aris stood, wobbling, and embraced me. The cool civility of late was gone. He held me tightly, and I clung to him for fear that my knees might not support me otherwise.

“He tried to stop them,” he mumbled. “I saw. If he had stopped—the first blow he might have survived. But… idiot.”

I swallowed back the tears clawing at my throat.

“I need to—to—”

Aris let me go, wiping at the tears at his face. He only made more of a mess. There was blood on his hands. Not his, I thought.

My heart was in my throat as I turned to stare down at the body of the nearest soldier. It was Costis. There was dirt and bits of stone in his hair, and a cut on his cheek from the explosion. His eyes were closed. The left buckle of his breastplate was badly mangled, the armor half hanging off his chest. Beneath it, his sky-blue undershirt was scarlet, sodden with blood, torn in three places. I knelt—rather, I fell to my knees. My eyes watered and I reached out a hand, and then let it fall, touching the grass rather than the body. I ought to touch him, something in me whispered. This might be my last chance. There would be no burial—only a pyre. I ought to give him what rites I could manage, to ease his journey.

But there was so little I could do, save to smooth back the hair from his forehead. I could not close his eyes, as they were already closed. I had no shroud to cover him. No water or soap to clean him. No coins to give him for the crossing—I did not have my wallet with me, and couldn’t think of where it might be. My mind latched onto this detail, went frantic over it, and I patted down my pockets and looked around the grass as if there might be a spare coin waiting for me there. I heard the swish of skirts behind me, but did not look. The earrings, I thought. The amber was worth more than a few coins, to be sure—and if my amulet for Costis had not saved him from death, at least it could grant him passage. My fingers were clumsy as I took the stone from my ear. I held it in my palm and reached down to take his… and then I paused.

The moonstone was gone. But Costis’s ear lobe was not torn, so it had not been ripped out in battle. Had it fallen? Another wave of anguish crashed over me. I looked at his hands. His arms were resting limply at his sides, and while his right hand, his sword hand, was open and empty, his left was clutched in a fist. Gently, I pried his fingers away and found the earring. I went still, staring at it, holding his hand in mine. His warm, living hand.

“Costis?” 

“Kamet—” the queen said in a soft voice, the careful kind of voice one uses with someone who had gone mad with grief. Her hand touched my shoulder and I shrugged it off. My heart was pounding.

“He’s still alive. Doctor—you must—a doctor—”

My words were jumbled nonsense. I dropped my earring as I reached for his neck, thinking to check his pulse, but my hand ended up on his cheek. He was alive. His skin was warm to the touch, and his eyes twitched. My voice cracked on his name again, and Costis opened his eyes. He looked up at me as though he did not recognize me, and I almost did not recognize him. His gaze was very distant, and his eyes—usually grey-green, like the underside of an olive leaf—were flat and grey as the sky when it is blanketed by storm clouds.

But then he spoke, and I knew his voice. He smiled, and I knew his smile, and the sun shifted in the sky and I saw that his eyes were as they always were, and I caught my breath again.

“Wise one,” he murmured in Mede, an affectionate epithet he had taken to calling me in his more playful moments, and I choked back a hysterical laugh.

“Don’t speak—you’re wounded—”

He ignored me. He pushed himself into a sitting position and loosened the good buckle on his breastplate, letting it fall. I began to berate him in a high, mangled voice, certain that he was about to aggravate his grievous wounds and kill himself in front of me. The queen began to call for a doctor and Aris swore with breathless joy. Then, as one, we all fell silent. Costis’s torn tunic was gaping, revealing his bare chest still coated with blood—but no wound.

“Water,” the queen said in a hushed voice, reaching out a hand. Aris gave her his waterskin and she thrust it at me wordlessly.

My hands shook as I poured a little bit over Costis’s chest, wiping away the blood and dirt. There were three pale white scars there, one near his armpit, two so near the center of his chest that it chilled me, even knowing that he had lived. If that was, indeed, what I knew.

To this day, there are many who don’t believe that Costis was ever seriously injured in the ambush. At the time, there were some who urged the king to dismiss him—to hang him, even, so sure were they that Costis only pretended to be injured in order to aid the Medes. Now, time having proved his devotion, those calls have stopped. Now, most doubters simply believe Costis was knocked unconscious by the blast, and was taken for dead. I do not blame them. Were I in their situation, I would be skeptical myself. But I had spent untold hours with my head pillowed on Costis’s chest, sleepless, resting my palm over his heart, watching the faint predawn light play across his skin. I knew his scars better than I knew my own, and I knew those three had not existed before the ambush at the tomb.

I let my hand rest again over his heart. It was steady and strong. I stood, and Costis stood with me. Aris and the queen were watching, and so was Chloe, openly gaping. None of us could think of what to say, and we were as silent and still as stones in the midst of a rushing river as the camp milled with activity around us. Costis was the first to speak.

“Did they take him?”

Aris nodded. Costis looked pained.

“My Queen, I’m sorry.”

“Costis,” Attolia said in a faint voice. “I think we may safely say that you bear no part of the blame. You have done your duty to the utmost, and the king will agree, when we have recovered him.”

“The king will blame me more than anyone else,” Costis corrected her with a faint smile, and I think the queen wanted to smile back.

Instead, she ordered Costis back to his tent to rest, and told him she would send the palace physician soon. Costis bowed and began to walk towards his tent, taking my hand as he did so. (Such a public gesture I would have declined, on another day, but not this time.) Some of the men stared as we passed. Teleus was in the middle of a sentence when he spotted Costis. He invoked the name of their god, a curse or a prayer or both, and gripped Costis’s shoulder. I could feel his eyes following us as we passed. Aris was trailing after us, and once we were at the entrance to our tent, he pulled Costis into a fierce hug. Costis returned it and dropped my hand, and I averted my gaze politely.

“I should find my squad,” Aris said in a rough voice after a moment. He wiped at his face again, this time using the back of his forearm. It was more effective, but barely. Costis looked stricken.

“I didn’t look. Who—?”

“Legarus,” Aris said sadly. “The poor, beautiful fool. Trulo… last I saw, he was still alive. I don’t know if he’ll make it. All of Clovis’s squad was lost in the first blast. Traegus I know is dead. There were more from his squad around him—Hypatos, I think—but I didn’t…” He shrugged, and attempted a smile. “Not you.”

“Nor you.”

Costis clapped him on the shoulder, and then Aris left and we went into the tent. We sank down on the cot together, side by side, staring at the canvas wall.

“Do you remember,” Costis said slowly. “When you told me about Immakuk and Ennikar and the Queen of the Night? And then I told you about the Attolian underworld?”

“I remember.”

“I said, in our stories it’s important to not eat or drink anything or you’d be trapped forever, and you said…”

“That you’d be doomed.” My voice wobbled.

“So, so, so.”

Costis put his arms around me, and I put my head on his shoulder, and together we wept.

***

The soldiers lined our path and cheered, some firing guns into the air, spending precious ammunition to celebrate. To my shock, as we drew nearer I recognized one of the soldiers standing by the council tent, illuminated by the lamps still glowing in the darkness. It was Costis. At first I could not believe the evidence of my own eyes, that Costis was not only among the living, but to all appearances unharmed and standing on his own power. But assuredly it was him.

(I will not debate the question of Costis in this account. I have faithfully recorded what I saw, or thought I saw, in the ambush at the tomb. I have promised not to record anything I did not witness, or of which I have not heard a firsthand account, and to my knowledge Costis has never discussed what happened with anyone, least of all me. Rumors abound, and other writers have already opined on the matter. I will only say that I find it amusing how some men who are so eager to attribute miracles to the King of Attolia deny them to a simple guard, only because he is a simple guard. As if we are not, all of us, from the mightiest to the lowest, dependent on the goodwill of the gods.)

Costis was watching the king with a wide smile on his face that slowly faded. By the time the king reached him, his face was solemn. The king turned his head, and Costis fell to his knees.

“Costis,” he said.

“Eugenides,” he replied, and I saw Teleus frown in fierce disapproval at the informality—but it was not the sort of thing Teleus could reprove him for, at least not in public. It was absolutely inappropriate for a guard to call the king by his proper name, but Eugenides was also the title of the Thief of Eddis. “I have a gift, in honor your safe return and mine.”

He stood and removed the moonstone from his ear, holding it up to the king.

“I confess, I have been eyeing this for some time,” the king admitted. “But it seemed discourteous to covet something devoted to Ne Malia. As a gift, it will be treasured.”

Costis placed the earring in his palm and bowed over his hand again. A few of the soldiers exchanged uneasy glances, wondering if their more-exuberant greeting was somehow inappropriate. Before anyone else could kneel, though, the king dismounted. Attolia, Eddis, and Sounis waited before the tent, surrounded by the royal councilors who had been debating through the night. Attolia step forward. She might have taken the king in her arms, but she hesitated, and that opportunity passed. “Welcome back, My King,” she said very formally.

“We have much to discuss,” said Eugenides, and passed by her to enter the council tent.

...

We sat and cried together, Teleus and I, by the ashes of the dead fire, as the men broke up the few remaining tents in the camp. Then Teleus wiped my face with his sleeve and sent me back to the king. As I approached, I saw that the queen’s attendant was no longer sitting on the stool in front of the tent. Instead, I found Kamet, staring into space, the warm tones of his skin faded to an ashen pallor. I went up to him. He did not see me until I touched a hand to his shoulder, and then he looked up with a wan smile.

“Hello, Pheris.”

_The king told you about Relius._

He nodded. He swallowed thickly, but his eyes were dry.

“Orutus, Susa, Erondites,” he said. “I have been turning over those names in my head for months. It never once occurred to me to look for treachery amongst the Braels. What a delicate balance he must have struck, bleeding Medea and Attolia in turn, and then me, caught in the middle and meddling. And to think that we did not even…” He shook himself after a moment. “I’m sorry, Pheris. I don’t mean—you must be very upset.”

 _I miss him,_ I signed. I thought for a moment and then added _Angry._ Kamet nodded.

“Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, I can understand that.”

He stood and kissed my forehead.

“We must not neglect the list of books that Relius left, when we return to the capital. We owe him that much. For now, see to the king. This battle may be nearing its end, but there is still much that needs to be done. There are accounts that must be settled.”

There was an unfamiliar glint in his eye, and I shivered.

...

When the ashes of Sejanus’s pyre had cooled, I climbed onto my pony to catch up with the king. On the road I passed companies of soldiers marching back toward Attolia. The Medes’ inclination to fight dropped with each mile they retreated, and more and more of our soldiers were being released to return home. I stayed the nights in whatever camp I found convenient. I was easily recognized and welcomed, a marvel to me then, and even now. At some point, as the king already had, I crossed the border into Roa, and rejoined the king’s retinue.

Costis was not one of the soldiers marching home. He had not left the king’s side, not at Naupent, not in Roa. The king needled him, suggesting that Costis was becoming full of himself. Neither of them ever spoke directly about the fact that Costis had, to all appearances, been brought back from the dead—at least not when anyone else could hear. But the king warned Costis that it was not such an easy thing, to have the attention of the gods, and that their favor could be fickle. He could not expect to be immune from danger, nor was he a talisman that could keep Eugenides from harm.

“Am I not your guard, My King?” Costis had asked, and the king’s gaze softened.

“Very well,” he said, and Costis stayed.

I was glad to have him in the king’s retinue, which was otherwise very small. Of the king’s thirteen attendants, nine had fallen to the Medes. Xikander was released to travel with his father back to their estate in Attolia, to console his mother over the loss of Xikos, and Ion, who had been with the king since his arrival at the palace, was being given a well-deserved rest. Even Kamet was gone, choosing to stay with the queen’s retinue instead of “tramping through the Roan backwoods with a sword,” although he had obligingly left the king several intricate maps of said backwoods. That left only Polemus and I to attend the king.

I was glad of another friendly face. The men about camp might welcome me, but as we progressed, our other encounters became distinctly _un_ friendly. Harrying the Medes, the king had not hesitated to enter Roa uninvited.

***

I was to have a very comfortable journey back to Attolia, on the _Ruby_ with the queen of Attolia. Eddis and Sounis were traveling on the _Sapphire_ and the _Diamond,_ and the regular army would be taking the land route home. The Guard would sleep in the galley, so it was only a small group of advisors and attendants dividing up the ship’s cabins. I shared mine with Ion, whom I liked well enough, and who spent much of his days flirting with Silla, the queen’s attendant.

As such, I was quite alone one afternoon, when I stepped into my cabin and an arm was flung around my chest to keep me still as the blade of a knife touched my throat.

The touch was not gentle, like the Eddisian’s training had been. I felt a drop of warm blood welling up at the point, and there might have been more, if the ship had not rolled slightly. My assailant took a moment to steady his stance, and that was the moment I needed. I remembered the Eddisian’s advice. I did not flinch. But neither did I think to grab the knife, or reach for my own. An evening of sword lessons and lectures about courage cannot turn a man into a warrior. I doubt I will ever be a warrior. I wielded a different weapon, without fear or hesitation: a name.

“Orutus.”

It was an instinct, but a lucky one. The knife hesitated. The point wavered, angling away from my neck instead of into it. I glanced down and saw the seal ring on the hand grasping the hilt. That was lucky, too. I did not know if I could convince a hired assassin. Perhaps I couldn’t convince the baron either, but at least I had more ammunition.

“If you truly wanted me dead, your man should have poisoned me on the boat to Brael,” I said calmly. “Or stabbed me in an alley at port. But you didn’t want me dead then—you knew what a risk it was. There is still time to turn back.”

“Is there?” the baron asked bitterly, and the knife angled towards me again. I felt the pressure of the edge against my skin. I blinked rapidly, my gaze fixed on the porthole opposite me as I tried to keep from shaking. The sky was blue and hazy, and I knew the day outside was hot beneath the sun.

“Do you think I did not discuss this with others?” I said, practically whispering. “There were only two other barons who could have had me followed to Roa. Erondites is dead. Susa could only have known from Costis, and there is not a man or woman in Attolia who would believe now that Costis betrayed me. Perhaps Yorn Fordad might have taken the blame, if your man in the palace had succeeded, but Yorn Fordad is gone. That leaves only you, Orutus. Kill me, and the queen will know within the hour. Even if she does not suspect enough to have you dragged to the dungeons, her suspicions will fester. Either way, your career is over.”

“And if I let you live? We will shake hands and agree to forgive and forget?”

My mind was racing, but I could come up with no immediate solution. The Eddisian’s lesson about becoming comfortable with knives had been effective, but short. Now the blood was soaking into my collar, and my hands were beginning to tremble. I squeezed them into fists.

“We will sit and discuss the situation,” I said. The strain was starting to show in my voice. “Like civilized men. There is no reason why we should not reach some kind of arrangement.”

I told myself that he was going to take my bargain. That there was no point in hearing me out, as the long seconds ticked past, if indeed he meant to kill me. After all, I could have cried out at any moment—if he were willing to take that risk, he would take this one. Even so, my knees went weak when the knife was lifted away, and I stumbled forward and crossed the cabin as quickly as I could, staunching the blood at my neck with my fingers.

I was breathing heavily. I was reminded forcefully of all those times Nahuseresh had beaten me. Sometimes, as with Marin, he had beaten me bloody and unconscious. Other times it had been a brief outburst—a casual backhand accompanied by some caustic remarks. I did not have the excuse of serious injury, to crumple on the ground or stumble away to Laela’s room and hide myself away. I simply had to breathe, and compose myself, and return to my duties. I am sure that my face, when I turned back to the baron, was polite. Correct in all respects, as though he were an invited guest. He himself looked terrible—pale and shaking and sick.

I gestured for Orutus to sit down on Ion’s bunk. There was a flat sea chest with all of our things, and from it I took a jug of wine, two cups, a small jar of dates, and a handkerchief. I set the provisions on top of the chest, and pressed the handkerchief against my neck as I sat opposite him, on my own bunk.

“So.”

I paused for a moment, a slight hesitation because I wanted to get this exactly right, to be seen as so reasonable and all-knowing that to disagree with me would be very silly, indeed. The tactic, in fact, that Relius had used on me my first morning as a free man in Attolia.

“Nahuseresh summoned you to bring pressure to bear on your father. But your father was unyielding. Loyal to the queen, an enemy of the Medes. How much easier would it be, you hinted, to deal with a different Baron Orutus? I presume you didn’t get along with your father to begin with,” I offered. I would have liked coffee, which would steady my nerves, but could not make any in this close room. I thought the taste of wine might make me sick, so instead I helped myself to a date in an effort to appear aloof and unconcerned.

“No, I did not,” Orutus said in a muted voice, gulping at his wine as though he were dying of thirst.

“Luckily, the queen threw off the Medes, leaving you lord over your father’s lands, but without having to actually undermine your country. Lucky for a time, at least. When did you realize the Medes still intended to call in your debts?”

“When Relius was arrested.” He sighed. “I didn’t realize… Nahuseresh had suggested, months before, that I host a dinner. He gave me several names. I didn’t know which were important, but that was where Relius met Lady Thais. And then Teleus brought him into the throne room and he admitted to leaking information, said that she was a spy—”

“In one fell swoop, exposing Attolian spies, depriving the queen of one of her staunchest allies, and installing you in his place. Except that last didn’t happen. She chose Hippias.”

“Hippias had assisted in drawing up the peace treaty between Eddis and Attolia. The king liked him better, and Her Majesty took his advice.”

“Did you kill Hippias?”

“I would _never_ ,” Orutus said viciously. I found his indignation distasteful, given that he had been willing to kill me not ten minutes before. “I am loyal to the queen. I wanted to serve Attolia—I never would have put her in danger by killing the secretary of the archives.”

“Yet you were happy to sell Attolia to the Medes, when Nahuseresh first spoke to you.”

“So were _you,_ ” he said coldly, which was a fair point. “The queen needed a king who could fend off Erondites and Susa both. Nahuseresh was a good choice.”

He was not going to convince me on that, but I shook my head and moved on.

“Very well. The Medes found some other way to get to Hippias, and there you were, secretary of the archives. Then I came back. You must have been worried I would discuss your meeting with Nahuseresh—but of course, you had an easy excuse to always be present, whenever I was giving up information. Hopefully, you could have diverted the topic if I brought it up. When I left…?”

“I wanted to know if you were to keep in contact with any Attolians. I asked the king where you were going. He told me off. He said that you owed Attolia no debt, that any information you happened to come across would be shared at your own discretion and I was not to bother you. I sent two men after you on my own, just to observe.”

“And intercepted my letters to Relius.”

He flushed.

“Relius had no business—”

“Do not—” My voice was uncharacteristically sharp. I snapped my mouth shut and took a deep breath, exhaling through my nose. “It is no one’s business, least of all yours, whom I choose for a friend and how I communicate with them. Let us not discuss who should have been sending letters and who should have been reading them. I sent the letters. You intercepted them. You sent someone looking for me in Roa.”

“No, I never did. That must have been the Medes.”

“You told them where I was?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I can’t betray—”

“There is no agreement between us if you don’t tell me this. The Medes managed to suborn Baron Erondites, the Braelish ambassador, and the master of spies. That means they have an information network that is a greater threat than any army the emperor could muster.”

Orutus hesitated for a moment, and then he refilled his wine cup and sighed.

“Three of Relius’s old spies in the empire were beaten and returned. They assumed the others were killed, but one of them fell in love with a Mede girl in Sidussa and defected. He still knew enough of the passwords to get a message smuggled in once I became secretary of the archives. The same man later sent a purse and instructions to have you killed, when we were still at the palace. He said we could not rely on you keeping my meeting with Nahuseresh secret. But that was all,” he added hastily. “I did nothing that would compromise the army’s victory. I did not know about Erondites’s treachery, or the Braels.”

“I see,” I said slowly. Orutus seemed to think this was a credit to him. I thought it proved that, in addition to being a traitor, he was woefully unqualified to be the secretary of the archives. But I did not say so. “And now—what? Nahuseresh is dead. He is sending no more gold. Is that why you felt the need to kill me yourself?” I asked in a dry voice. “No money for an assassin, but you are so honorable that you still felt the need to keep your bargain with a dead man?”

Orutus gave me a look of confusion.

“Nahuseresh has been in exile from the capital for much of the last two years,” he said, as if I were being obtuse. “He was not the one who contacted me.”

For a moment I looked back, just as confused, and then I swore with a violence that surprised me.

“Naheelid?”

He nodded. I stood up from my seat and began to pace, circling the small cabin just as my thoughts circled each other, around and around and around again. 

A short time later I found myself standing on the upper deck of the ship, before the queen. A comfortable tent had been set up on the deck so that the queen might enjoy the sea breeze without sacrificing her privacy. At my arrival, she had sent away all of her attendants except for Phresine, who sat unobtrusively behind her, and ordered her guards to expand their perimeter so that we would not be overheard. It was only the three of us; I would have included Teleus, but he was in my cabin, guarding Orutus.

The queen was impassive as I explained the situation. She had been ill at the beginning of our journey, and her face was paler than usual, but by the time I had finished there were two bright red spots of anger high on her cheeks.

“Well,” she said in a brittle voice when I finished. “ _Well._ I seem to be having great difficulty with my secretaries of the archives as of late. This is unfortunate.”

“I regret that I must be the bearer of bad news, Your Majesty.”

“Better that than to have left me in ignorance. Tell Teleus that the baron is to be confined to his cabin for the rest of the trip. We will say he has been taken ill. I want him off the ship before anyone else and taken straight to the prison. The Medes must not hear of his arrest until he has been interrogated.”

“If Your Majesty thinks that is best.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Would you disagree?”

“I would think it was a missed opportunity,” I said delicately. “From what I know of both the emperor and the heir, I believe their recent actions indicate that the emperor is ailing more rapidly than expected, and that Naheelid thinks to take power soon. Six months. A year at most. If you were to keep Orutus as your secretary publicly until such time, you would be able to dismantle the Mede networks before Naheelid realizes Orutus is out of favor. He could tell you where Naheelid is focusing his intentions, and pass on misinformation to the Medes. Meanwhile, all new information, new codes, the identity of new spies, can bypass Orutus entirely. When a sufficient amount of time has passed, you can find a reason to dismiss him and install a new secretary of the archives.”

“A clever scheme, certainly. It would not be the first time double agents have served Attolia—but in the past, they had always informed me or Relius the moment they were approached by my enemies. What makes you think that Orutus will carry out this plan, rather than bowing to Mede pressure once more?”

“That is the difficulty with blackmail, Your Majesty. Once the secret has been exposed, it holds no power. In his own way, the baron still believes he is loyal to Attolia, and he is willing to carry out your orders in exchange for your mercy.”

“He wishes to _negotiate_ with me?”

“Would you trust in his word if he claimed to be purely altruistic?”

The queen scoffed and rested her chin in her hand.

“No. Tell me then, what does the baron want?”

“Assurances that the barony will pass to his heir, the son of his sister, rather than being reclaimed by the crown. He asks also that, when Naheelid dies or is removed from power, he may be banished. Failing that, he would prefer a life imprisonment. Personally, I think he may settle for the assurance of an easy death, but I may be biased, as one who has also felt the threat of a torturous execution.”

“He knows what has happened to my treacherous barons in the past,” the queen said coldly. “He will accept a hanging. But I am curious, Kamet, to hear what you might advise.”

“In the past, I have advised Your Majesty on the Medes,” I demurred. “That is where my speciality lies. I am still largely ignorant about the nuances of your court.”

“I think we both know that isn’t true,” she said. “Nevertheless. I want to hear what you think.”

Our eyes locked, and something passed unspoken between us. She knew that I would not have laid out this proposal were I not making a more serious offer. I knew she would not have asked for my thoughts were she not pondering an acceptance.

“Do you know of Kamia Shesmegah, the Mede goddess?”

“No. Is this yet _another_ goddess, of _another_ pantheon, to whom I must swear fealty?”

I ducked my head to hide a smile.

“I do not mean to prosthelytize, Your Majesty. But I thought you may be interested in her story, because she is the only goddess who was once mortal. One day, a young orphan girl named Kamia was traveling towards the delta, when a bandit came upon her. He stole everything she had and beat her, and left her there in the desert. She came across a pomegranate tree that still bore a single fruit, but a bird snatched it before she could reach, and began to feast. She picked up a stone to throw at the bird. Then the bird, having finished its meal, sang so sweetly that she dropped the stone and instead thanked it for its song. To her surprise, the bird spoke. It offered to take her to a stream, and eventually they traveled together on to the delta, the bird giving Kamia wise advice all the way. She was hired as a servant to the king.

“There is a very long series of stories that follow,” I said, waving my hand. “Suffice to say, there are many other servants and slaves around her, all jostling for greater position, and every time there is an opportunity, one of the other servants does something cruel and loses, while Kamia does something kind and wins—until eventually, many years later, she has married the king and brought great prosperity to the land. Then a man comes to her audience chamber, and the queen—called Shesmegah by then, a name more befitting her position—recognizes him as the bandit who robbed her. He is an old man, sick and come to beg the queen for a bed in her poorhouse so that he will not die on the side of the road.

“She goes to her friends in the court, and they urge her to take revenge—to have the man flayed or thrown in the river in a sack, because she is the queen and it is her absolute right to do whatever she likes with her subjects. She prays to the gods, and Prokip comes to argue for justice—to beat and rob a traveler is a serious offence, punishable by lashes or a heavy fine. This is what the law demands, he tells her, but he cautions her against cruelty for cruelty’s sake. And then she asks the bird. ‘It is true,’ he says, ‘that a queen may seek revenge from her enemies. It is true, also, that the girl beaten by the bandit deserves justice. If the queen is here, let her seek revenge. If the girl is here, let her seek justice.’

“Shesmegah replies, ‘I am the queen, but I was not born to high position, and in my childhood I suffered as no queens suffer. I was that girl, starving and alone and in pain, but now I am well-fed and powerful and surrounded by friends. Who, then, am I?’

“‘Ah, says the bird. That is a difficult question.’

“All through the night, Shesmegah ponders the advice she has been given, and then the dawn comes and the man returns. She approaches him, and puts her hand on his cheek—not to strike him, but in friendship. At her touch, the man is healed of his illness, and he falls at her feet and weeps. Seeing the miracle she has performed, the gods send down Anet with her chariot, and that is how Kamia Shesmegah was elevated to the place of the gods.”

Of course it was a pointed story, and one designed to prompt contemplation, but I was uneasy at the length of the silence that followed, even though Phresine smiled at me over the queen’s shoulder. I was startled and then alarmed to see a tear slide down Attolia’s cheek.

“Your Majesty, if—if I have overstepped—”

“No, Kamet.” Phresine leaned forward and discreetly slipped a handkerchief into the queen’s hand, and she dabbed at her eyes. “Mercy is a luxury, and one that has often been far too dear for me to afford. You have given me much to reflect on, and I am afraid reflection is often perilous to one in my state.” She smiled dryly and rested her hand on her abdomen for a brief moment before folding her hands in her lap. “Very well. It is a complicated plan you propose, and many of the details require further discussion. I will make no promises on Orutus’s fate now, but I will honor Shesmegah’s example on one condition: that when Orutus is removed, you will take his place as secretary of my archives.”

It was my turn to be silent. I had expected such an offer. It had been lurking in the back of my mind since Orutus had released me, when it became clear that I might live and that he was too dangerous in his current position. Perhaps it had been lurking there even before, since I had returned to Attolia and slipped so effortlessly into Relius’s shadow.

Even so, it was a momentous decision to make, and one that deserved some consideration. I had sworn no oaths to the Mede Empire—as a slave, all of my loyalty was owed to my master, not my nation. I had been a foreigner in Roa and in Attolia. I had had no homeland since I was a child in Setra, and to become an Attolian now was a strange prospect to me, let alone to step into a position of such power. And yet, it felt like an inevitability.

I owed much of my life to the king. What remained, I owed to _my_ Attolian, and I knew that he was distressed at the possibility that the people he loved might one day pull him in opposite directions; this would relieve him of that worry. But in my innermost heart, I was pleased that neither of them were present. I was glad that I would extend my loyalty not out of love or gratitude, but because I was making a conscious decision to build my own future. I had admired the queen of Attolia long before Attolis was Attolis, before I had ever met Costis. As I opened my mouth to accept, I remembered suddenly the earring in my ear, the twin of the one Costis had given the king. An amber stone, carved with the Hand of Shesmegah.

I bowed deeply and removed the stone, holding it out to the queen. She recognized the carving. Her fingers closed over the stone, and she bestowed on me a smile that warmed from my toes to the top of my head.

“Thank you, Kamet.”

“You are welcome, My Queen.”

***

Costis stood on the high reaches of the palace, staring out over the city. It was lit by the glow of fires everywhere, by the many outdoor banquets scattered throughout the capital. The people had had much to celebrate of late—he supposed that they had feasted, too, when they learned of peace with the Medes, when the queen had returned, when the prince and princess were born. But now all those things were still true, and their king had returned, and their joy could not be stymied.

Normally, when he stood at this post, he was standing watch alone. Not so tonight. Tonight, the entire court was with him. The air rippled with the music of Eddisian pipes, with laughter, with the tromp of boots and the patter of slippers. The court was dancing on the roof.

A hand touched his arm, and he turned to find Kamet waiting. He was wearing earrings—aquamarines set in gold, Attolian colors, a gift from the queen—and a tunic in such heavy embroidery that it must be a gift from the king. But it suited him. He carried himself with an effortless grace and confidence that few could match, and looked up at Costis with a smile. It was a gentle smile, honest but restrained, as though Kamet was delighting over a private joy. It was the same smile Costis had once seen on the _Anet’s Dream_ , when Kamet first shared those precious lines of poetry, and now as then he was intrigued. He wanted to know what Kamet was thinking, behind his polite facade. He wanted to share in that private joy, to be the source of it and the beneficiary.

“Dance with me, my life,” Kamet said simply.

Costis was not especially enthused at the prospect of dancing on the roof. He knew what it was like to fall, and to be caught by the gods, and he was not sure if it was worth it. But Kamet was asking.

“Of course,” he said. Kamet held out his hand, and Costis took it and followed him up.


End file.
